Ionic liquids (ILs) are potential neoteric solvents to design new advanced separation processes. Among several separation cases studied so far, the good performance of ILs regarding the dearomatization of liquid fuels, i.e. pyrolysis and reformer gasolines, has received especially attention. Indeed, a wide number of works has been done to characterize the phase equilibria for {aliphatic + aromatic + ILs} systems as well as the IL thermophysical properties, concluding in the development of a liquid-liquid extraction process. However, this technology seems not to be enough to fulfill current aromatic commercial standards nor potential incoming restrictions for aromatic content in liquid fuels as a result of its low separation effectiveness for extreme aliphatic and aromatic purification. Extractive distillation with ILs stands as a new process configuration to overcome these limitations by enhancing the aliphatic/aromatic relative volatilities. In this work, an IL experimental screening in the n-heptane/toluene separation was done to further develop this new IL-based technology. Nine ILs were tested as mass agents in a wide range of conditions, i.e. solvent to feed (S/F) ratios from 1 to 10 and temperatures from 323.2 to 403.2 K. The required vapor-liquid-liquid equilibria (VLLE) data were obtained by an experimental procedure based on headspace gas chromatography (HS-GC) developed in the framework of this work. Although all pre-selected ILs have shown good performance, tricyanomethanide-based ILs have been the most promising mass agents.

离子液体（ILs）是潜在的新型溶剂，可用于设计新的高级分离工艺。在迄今为止研究的几个分离案例中，ILs在液体燃料（即热解汽油和重整汽油）脱芳香化方面的良好性能受到了特别关注。实际上，已经完成了许多工作来表征{脂肪族+芳香族+ ILs}系统的相平衡以及IL的热物理性质，从而完成了液-液萃取工艺的开发。但是，该技术似乎不足以满足目前的芳香族商业标准，也不足以满足液体燃料中芳香族化合物含量的潜在限制，原因是其对极端的脂肪族和芳香族化合物提纯的分离效率低。用IL进行萃取蒸馏是通过提高脂族/芳族相对挥发性来克服这些局限性的新工艺配置。在这项工作中，在进行了正庚烷/甲苯分离以进一步开发这种新的基于IL的技术。在多种条件下（即溶剂与进料（S / F）比为1到10，温度为323.2到403.2 K）下测试了9种ILs作为质量调节剂。获得了所需的气-液-液平衡（VLLE）数据通过在这项工作框架内开发的基于顶空气相色谱法（HS-GC）的实验程序。尽管所有预选的IL均显示出良好的性能，但基于三氰胺的IL一直是最有前途的质量保证剂。