Fundamental studies on natural deep eutectic solvents: physico-chemical, thermal and rheological properties

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Abstract

When combined at particular molar fractions, sugars, aminoacids or organic acids a present a high melting point depression, becoming liquids at room temperature. These are called Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents – NADES and are envisaged to play a major role on the chemical engineering processes of the future. Nonetheless, there is a significant lack of knowledge of its fundamental and basic properties, which is hindering their industrial applications. For this reason it is important to extend the knowledge on these systems, boosting their application development [1]. In this work, we have developed and characterized NADES based on choline chloride, organic acids, amino acids and sugars. Their density, thermal behavior, conductivity and polarity were assessed for different compositions. The conductivity was measured from 0 to 40 °C and the temperature effect was well described by the Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann equation. The morphological characterization of the crystallizable materials was done by polarized optical microscopy that provided also evidence of homogeneity/phase separation. Additionally, the rheological and thermodynamic properties of the NADES and the effect of water content were also studied. The results show these systems have Newtonian behavior and present significant viscosity decrease with temperature and water content, due to increase on the molecular mobility. The anhydrous systems present viscosities that range from higher than 1000Pa.s at 20 °C to less than 1Pa.s at 70 °C. DSC characterization confirms that for water content as high as 1:1:1 molar ratio, the mixture retains its single phase behavior. The results obtained demonstrate that the NADES properties can be finely tunned by careful selection of its constituents. NADES present the necessary properties for use as extraction solvents. They can be prepared from inexpensive raw materials and tailored for the selective extraction of target molecules. The data produced in this work is hereafter importance for the selection of the most promising candidates avoiding a time consuming and expensive trial and error phase providing also data for the development of models able to predict their properties and the mechanisms that allow the formation of the deep eutectic mixtures.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationNWBC 2015 - 6th Nordic Wood Biorefinery Conference
PublisherVTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
Pages155-160
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9789513883539
Publication statusPublished - 2015
Event6th Nordic Wood Biorefinery Conference, NWBC 2015 - Helsinki, Finland
Duration: 20 Oct 201522 Oct 2015

Publication series

NameNWBC 2015 - 6th Nordic Wood Biorefinery Conference

Conference

Conference6th Nordic Wood Biorefinery Conference, NWBC 2015
Country/TerritoryFinland
CityHelsinki
Period20/10/1522/10/15

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