Ionic Liquids

The separation and recovery of oil or tar from sand is a critical problem in a number of industries and crucial to the mitigation of environmental disasters, such as those associated with oil spills. For example, oil or tar sands compose a significant proportion of the world's known oil reserves.
Read more: www.matse.psu.e...

[@michelbisson6645]

wow very good youa re the best

[@matt10155]

This is excellent work. I hope to see this in commercial use in the very near future. There needs to be a drastic increase in funding for research like this.

[@pokefreak102]

WHY HASN'T THIS BEEN BROUGHT TO ANYONE'S ATTENTION

[@the_mentaculus]

+EntropyandEnthalpy Ionic liquids are expensive. That's basically the main barrier to all of the amazing applications. If they were as cheap as traditional solvents or electrolytes, they'd be in every battery, solar cell and chemistry lab.

[@phillipwilliams8280]

The ionic liquid allows for the exclusion of fines and minerals from the bitumen layer and also for a higher overall yield of extraction compare to other conventional extraction methods. Also on a larger, industrial sized scale, shear can be facilitated by the pumping of a slurry mixture through pipes as opposed to the mixing of components in a vessel (vial) as seen in this laboratory scale demonstration. Again instead of settling in a tank, a centrifuge can be used to define layers...

[@ybabatundeful]

Which sets of ILs are employed in this research? Is this option of ILs more effective than hot water ectraction?

[@phillipwilliams8280]

angelgirl: Using an ionic liquid allows a more efficient separation of the bitumen in comparison to using other methods which are currently employed... Do to the special interactions with the ionic liquid (see our papers in energy&fuels...not to go into too much detail here...) the fine particles and/or minerals from the sand are not included in the extracted bitumen (like with other methods), and the overall yield tends to be much higer >90+% (again see studies in published work...).

[@phillipwilliams8280]

No by "stir" it means to apply a shear...or well to physically "stir." Once that initial energy is applied to help facility the separation...the mixture can be allowed to simply settle (as seen in this video), or centrifugation can be applied to speed up the process and obtain the subsequent layers faster. The "revolutionary science" which is probably not quite apparent in this simple video, is well in the science of the details which can be seen in the published work. Refer to above comment.

[@angelgirl2285]

Why is it important to use an Ionic liquid vs something else? I am doing a research project on Ionic liquids and thought this video would be helpful but you don't really provide any details.

[@MrMagniloquentia]

I'm guessing by "stir" you mean centrifuge? Essentially, you're decanting a solution that you've centrifuged? I really don't mean to be insulting, but this is hardly revolutionary science.

[@JT9531]

random comment. success :)