Abstract
In this work, the performance of selected ionic liquid-water mixtures was investigated for an acetone cooling application in a process plant using a double pipe heat exchanger. Cooling media such as river water and ionic liquid-water mixtures were compared, specifically water-saturated quaternary phosphonium-based carboxylate ionic liquids were considered in this work. Ionic liquids generally have high thermal stability, resist degradation, and provide higher temperatures at low vapor pressures and for these reasons, ionic liquids can be a good substitute for conventional heat transfer fluids. At each condition, the performance of the ionic liquid mixture was compared with that of water. For the designated cooling application, the performance of water was much better than the ionic liquid mixtures.