Mr. Pavankumar Banglore, the student of M.Pharm Pharmaceutical Chemistry First Year, SPP-School of Pharmacy and Technology Management, SVKM’S NMIMS have secured FIRSTPRIZE for providing innovative solution to the problem “Desulfurization of Petrochemical feedstock using Ionic Liquids” during “ Young Innovators Choice Competition 2012”held at Institute Of Chemical Technology, Mumbai during January 14-17, 2012.
The brief abstract of the same is as follows:
Summary
The sulfur compounds present in the petrochemicals largely reduces the efficiency of the fuel and is necessary to be removed for higher efficiency. Many techniques have been proposed and are being used by the industry today but every technique has its own pros and cons. Even the widely used techniques like hydrodesulfurization and oxidative desulfurization have their own drawbacks which ultimately make the process more complex and costlier.
In this report, the usage of neutral ionic liquids which are surface functionalized on to a silica gel polymer using conventional methods of functionalization has been introduced as an idea to overcome the drawbacks of the existing techniques. Neutral ionic liquids which are halogen free are selected in order to avoid the risk of contamination of the fuel by halide ions. Acetonitrile, a solvent in the regeneration mixture, is also neutralized prior to addition. Enough literature has been provided to show the efficiency of the independent techniques of usage of silica and ionic liquids alone. The presented idea combines two techniques assuming that the overall efficiency of the formed extractant to be additive. Experiments are to be conducted to know the feasibility of the reactions and its kinetics in desulfurization process.