Ionic liquids to boost yield and environmental performance
Dr. Peter Waite, technical director of leading international environmental and engineering consultants Entec and a Registered IChemE Safety & Environment Professional was on the judging panel. He comments that “the BASF team has clearly used the properties of ionic liquids to great environmental, safety and economic benefit.” Nigel Hirst, chairman of the judges and managing director of contractors Haden Freeman, points out that “Basil makes significant improvements in two areas of major concern to pharmaceutical manufacturers: it greatly increases chemical yield, and it does away with the horrors of suspensions.”
BASF sells this new process under the trade name BasilTM, an acronym of Biphasic Acid Scavenging Utilizing Ionic Liquids. The ionic liquids as such are sold by the name BasionicsTM. The Basil process allows fast and simple removal of acids from reaction mixtures. It involves the reaction of an acid with a base that results in a liquid salt instead of solid crystals, which can cause problems in large-scale production. The use of ionic liquids means that time-consuming and expensive filtration is no longer necessary. These liquids can be easily separated from the desired products, like oil from water, and can also be recycled. 1 Methylimidazol, which replaces other bases used as additives, additionally acts as a catalyst, thus speeding up the reaction considerably.
An Eco-Efficiency Analysis recently confirmed that the use of BASF's BasilTM process for scavenging acids in the chemical synthesis of phosphorus compounds offers significant advantages over the conventional system.
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