Study on Interfacial Mass Transport and Process Intensification for Ionic Liquid [BMIM]Br Synthesis

As emerging green solvents, ionic liquids (ILs) have promising applications in many fields. However, its long reaction time and high price restrict its industrial application. The main reason for this is due to the generation of droplets during the synthesis reaction. Aiming at the process intensification of the 1-methylimidazole (MIM)-based ILs, this paper has studied the evolution behavior of the droplets during its synthesis according to droplet breakage theory. The results show that the droplet size distribution (DSD) and its number density are closely related to the reaction progress. By comparing the Kolmogoroff microscale and droplet size, the synthesis process can be divided into Reaction stage I, when the conversion of MIM is below 60%, and Reaction stage II, when the conversion of MIM is beyond 60%. High stirring speed and temperature increase have been put forward for each stage. The reaction time can be effectively reduced by 43.93%, which is instructive in improving the production efficiency of [BMIM]Br.