Lubricants and hydraulic fluidsIonic liquids exhibit completely new lubricating and hydraulic properties that actually allow machines to be designed in a specific way. Such possibilities are becoming more and more real thanks to proionic's ever-increasing expertise when it comes to the material compatibility of ionic liquids and its knowledge of developing appropriate additives.
The most important strengths of ionic liquids in the lubricants and hydraulic sector are very high VI (viscosity index) values up to 400 and more, which results in low change of viscosity with temperature, extremely low compressibility, very high shear stability, negligible cavitation even under tensile stresses of up to -1000 bar and tremendous lubricating and cooling properties. In addition, they are de facto non-flammable.
Air conditioning
proionic offers a liquid, non-corrosive and non-volatile desiccant which cannot evaporate due to the basic properties of ionic liquids. This prevents loss and contamination. It is possible to reduce or even completely remove harmful air constituents. This is made possible by a process developed by proionic for separating polar substances, such as water or carbon dioxide, from air and gas flows. Savings of around 20% -30% energy compared to the systems used to date can be made, when operating air conditioning systems using the liquid desiccant from proionic. The desiccant is easier to manipulate than the usual solid desiccants. This allows the installations for air conditioning to be more compact and more cost-effective, making them very interesting for consumers and for the automotive industry.
Hydrogen storageproionic is developing ionic liquids which can store hydrogen without pressurization and can store it stably and safely at normal temperature. The currently achievable energy densities applicable in engines are already around 20% - 25% of the storage capacity of conventional fuels, and are therefore in the leading field of technologies for hydrogen storage. It would be possible to increase this value to approx. 35% and even further in the ideal case. proionic's storage liquids therefore lie within the targets of the US Department of Energy which are used worldwide as a basis for the development of storage systems for hydrogen. The hydrogen is released from the ionic liquids selectively and as required and is used to generate electricity in fuel cells. The depleted ionic liquid can then be recharged with hydrogen and be recycled continuously for many charging and discharging cycles.
Chemical production processes
Chemical processes are generally a very large area of application for ionic liquids. They render completely new reactions and process designs possible because their specific chemical and physical properties make new directions conceivable. This concerns not only their unusual solubility or catalytic properties but also, for example, their special behavior when combined with microwaves, or simply the fact that they are non-volatile and that therefore many production processes can be operated in an environmentally friendly, emission-free way without solvent loss.
