Future Price of Ionic Liquids

The price of ionic liquids is determined by many parameters, such as personnel, overheads, and real production costs. One can imagine that production on a small scale would be mostly determined by the personnel cost and little by the material cost. On a large scale, the material cost should become more important and mainly determine the price of an ionic liquid. This means that the price of a large-scale commercial ionic liquid should be dictated by the price of the cation and anion source. 

This table illustrates pretty well that the large-scale ionic liquid will probably not comprise a diallcylimidazolium cation and a [CE3S02)2N] anion. Over a medium-term timescale, we would expect a range of ionic liquids to become commercially available for 25-50 per liter on a ton scale. Halogen-free systems made from cheap anion sources are expected to meet this target first. 

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The future price of ionic liquids will also reflect intellectual property considerations. While the currently most frequently requested ionic liquids, the tetrafluoroborate and hexafluorophosphate ionic liquids, are all patent-free, many recently developed, new ionic liquid systems are protected by state of matter patents. Table 2.2-2 gives an overview of some examples published after 1999. 

In this context it is important to note that future prices for ionic liquids will not only be determined by the price of the starting materials, besides those variable costs, fectors such as complexity of manufacturing processes, certain quality requirements, IP-costs together with the notification costs for new substances, contribute significantly to the price of ionic hquids. Furthermore, operational costs such as rent for production facilities, deviation of production equipment, waste disposal and overheads, to name but a few, need to be incorporated into the selling prices for ionic liquids. 

The ionic liquid investment could be further reduced if future research enables the application of ammonium based alkylsulfate or arylsulfonate ionic liquids. For these systems bulk prices around 15 /kg are expected. Ammonium based alkylsulfate or arylsulfonate ionic liquids usually show melting points slightly above room temperature but clearly below the operating temperature of the hydroformylation reaction. Therefore these systems may be less suitable for the liquid-liquid biphasic process in which the ionic liquid may be involved in process steps at ambient temperature (e.g. phase separation or liquid storage). In contrast, for the SILP catalyst a room temperature ionic liquid is not necessarily required as long as the film becomes a liquid under the reaction conditions. Assuming an ammonium based SILP catalyst, the capital investment for the ionic liquid for the industrial SILP catalyst would add up to 105,000 . 

Cost and commercial availabiUty More and more lab suppliers and a few large-scale suppliers offer ionic Uquids. For a more frequent use of these solvents the commercially available variety has to be increased and cost should be reduced. There is good reason that cost reductions will be possible in the near future because at least some of the ionic liquids will potentially find use in very large apphcations besides catalysis. They are discussed for fuel desulfurization, separations, hquefication, gasification and chemical modification of sohd fuels, as electrolytes or in connection with synthesis and apphcation of new materials. Also apphcations such as azeotrope-breaking liquids, thermal fluids or lubricants are under consideration. Because of economy of scale in combination with such apphcations, the price of the solvent will decrease significantly. 

However, price reductions for ionic liquids will continue in the future in relation to the quantities needed. An example of what one might expect for the future is shown in Table 2.2-2. 

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