Ionic Liquids for Better Separation Processes

Héctor Rodríguez received his Chemical Engineer’s degree from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) in 2001. Five years later, he completed his Ph.D. in Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the same university. He was a visiting researcher at Queen’s University Belfast (2004, 2005), University of Notre Dame (2006) and The University of Alabama (2007), before returning to Queen’s University as a postdoctoral research fellow (2008-2009). Since January 2010 he has been a faculty member of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Santiago de Compostela. Within this period, he also completed a short-term research stay at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the use of ionic liquids for the development of improved separation processes of industrial interest, with an emphasis on phase equilibria and thermodynamics for process design.

• Ionic liquids in the context of separation processes.-Extractive distillation with ionic liquids: Pilot plant experiments and conceptual process design.- Ionic liquids for extraction processes in refinery-related applications.- Ionic liquids for metal ions separation.- Aqueous biphasic systems based on ionic liquids for extraction, concentration and purification approaches.- Extraction of Sandalwood Oil Using Ionic Liquids: Towards a “Greener” More Efficient Process.- Leaching of active ingredients from plants with ionic liquids.- Chiral ionic liquids in separation sciences.- Analytical applications of ionic liquids in chromatographic and electrophoretic separation techniques.

“The chapters provide a good balance of examples where ILs have made valuable contributions to separations as well as discussing their limitations. Several of the chapters also provide an outlook into areas where ILs will continue to be useful in a broad range of applications. … this is a very good book that I highly recommend for readers wishing to understand how the versatility of ILs can be exploited in a broad range of separation processes.” (Jared L. Anderson, Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, Vol. 408, 2016)