Immobilized liquid membranes drawbacks

A drawback of immobilized liquid membranes (ILM) (7) is that the liquid phase used as a solvent for the carrier molecules may be forced out of the pores at high pressure gradients. In particular, this can be a severe problem for thin separating barriers which are necessary for gas separation membranes in order to obtain high fluxes, and thereby an economical process. Another drawback is that the carrier molecules may leak out over time. 

Supported ionic liquid catalysis is one of the main examples of SLPC adopted [120] to take advantage of ionic liquid properties without the drawbacks evidenced in Section 2.3.6. The viability of this concept has been confirmed by several studies that have successfully confined various ionic phases to the surface of support materials and explored their potential catalytic applications. Although most of the evaluated supports were silica based, several studies have focused on polymeric materials, including membranes. These materials were prepared by using two different immobilization approaches. The first involves the covalent attachment of ionic liquids to the support surface whereas the second simply deposits the ionic liquid phases containing catalytically active species on the surface of the support. 

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