Affinity Solvents for Intensified Organics Extraction： Development Challenges and Prospects

Introduction In contrast to inorganics and metals processing, most organics extraction processes use classical organic sol-vents that utilize physical interactions with the solutes of interest to achieve the desired separation1]. Clear examples are the e…

Affinity Solvents for Intensified Organics Extraction: Development Challenges and Prospects

In most organics extraction processes, the commonly used solvents employ solely physical inter-actions. Therefore, for the recovery and purification of products from complex mixtures, the selectivity and/or capacity of classical solvents towards the desired solutes is usually insufficient, enforcing the need for com-plex and thus expensive separation schemes. Significant simplification and cost-reduction can be achieved when affinity solvents would be available that are able to recognize the solutes of interest by their molecular structure. The main development challenges to establish such affinity solvents are: Selection and incorpora-tion of molecular recognition and complexation capabilities; Evaluation of extraction capabilities; Efficient re-covery and recycling of the affinity solvents; Implementation in industrial extraction equipment. This paper presents how these development challenges are addressed at the University of Twente, going all the way from affinity solvent design and synthesis, via high throughput screening and characterization up to pilot plant evaluation. Essential in the successful development of affinity solvents are structural cooperations with molecular chemists and custom synthesis companies for their design and synthesis. The various aspects are illustrated by several examples where newly developed environmentally benign affinity solvents ap-peared able to create major breakthroughs. The applications addressed involve oxygenates, sugars, and pharmaceutical ingredients, such as optical isomers and biomolecules.