ISSN 09655441, Petroleum Chemistry, 2014, Vol. 54, No. 8, pp. 595–607. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2014. 595 1 INTRODUCTION Separation processes based on membrane technol ogy have created great impact in recent years because these are low power consumption, low waste genera tion and environmentally friendly technologies. With in these processes, the supportedionicliquid mem brane (SILM)based technology has received a great interest due to two main characteristics. Firstly, the difference offered by supported membranes synthe sized by using conventional solvents; secondly, the SILMs are more stable and display longterm perfor mance because of the flexibility to choose the cation and the anion to obtain an ionic liquid surrounding immiscible phases. Due to the high viscosity and high capillary force that commonly characterize the ionic liquids (ILs), these suffer little loss by entrainment or displacement. On the other hand, due to their proper ties, ILs are considered as “green” solvents. SILMs can be used for both gas and liquid separa tions and although research on this topic is very re cent, the results obtained so far suggest that SILMs are a very promising technology for the solution of the problems related to gas and liquid separations in the oil industry. 1 The article is published in the original. In this paper, the potential applications of the SILMs in the separation of liquids and gases of interest to the Oil Industry, which motivated the publication of research papers on this topic in the last decade, are re viewed. 1. ILS AND SILMS ILs are ionic compounds, where the cation, at least, is of organic type. ILs are already liquid at low temperatures (<100°C) and have a relatively low vis cosity [1]. Anions can be organic or inorganic and the combinations of the different cations and anions can change dramatically the physicochemical properties of the generated IL [2]. The most commonly used cations in the ILs are imidazolium, pyridinium, pyrazolium, piperidinium, ammonium, phosphonium, and sulfonium, where R, R', R'' and R''' are generally alkyl chains. The anions can be halogens (known as “first gener ation ILs”), inorganic anions such as [BF 4 ] – , [PF 6 ] – , [SbF 6 ] – , [AlCl 4 ] – , [AuCl 4 ] – , [NO 3 ] – , [NO 2 ] – , [SO 4 ] – , or organic like [AcO] – , Tf – , [N(OTf) 2 ] – , [CF 3 CO 2 ] – , [CF 3 SO 3 ] – , [PhCOO] – , [C(CN) 2 ] – , [RSO 4 ] – [OTs] – , and [SCN] – . ILs have fascinating properties such as extremely low volatility, nonflammability, wide liquid tempera Supported Ionic Liquid Membranes for Separations of Gases and Liquids: an Overview 1 Rafael MartínezPalou a, *, Natalya V. Likhanova a , and Octavio OlivaresXometl b a Dirección de Investigación y Posgrado, Instituto Mexicano del Petróleo, Eje Central Lázaro Cárdenas 152, 07730, D.F., México. Tel: + 525591757846, Fax.: + 525591756380 b Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Facultad de Ingeniería Química, Av. San Claudio y 18 Sur, Col. San Manuel, Ciudad Universitaria. Puebla, 72570, México *email: rpalou@imp.mx Abstract—The separation of mixtures of gases and liquids is a topic of great interest in the oil industry, which in many cases still has not found a technology that could be really efficient, environmentally friendly and technically feasible to obtain pure gases as well as for the removal of pollutants in liquid feedstocks. In this sense, one of the most promising alternatives for the solution of both problems is the use of membrane tech nology. Particularly, supportedionicliquidmembranebased technology has prompted great interest due to the combined characteristics of this system. On the one hand, supported membranes, using conventional sol vents, are more stable and feature longterm performance; on the other hand, ionic liquids are environmental friendly solvents that can be designed for every specific application. In this work, an overview of recent research on supported ionic liquid membranes with special emphasis in potential applications for the Petroleum Industry is offered. Both, gas and liquid separations are highlighted. Keywords: support ionic liquid membranes, green technology, gases separation, liquids separation, pervapo ration DOI: 10.1134/S0965544114080106