Task-specific ionic liquids as absorbents and catalysts for efficient capture and conversion of H2S into value-added mercaptan acids

Abstract The capture and conversion of H2S is of importance towards long-standing economic and environmental challenge. Hence, a series of task-specific ionic liquids were developed and presented as both absorbents and catalysts for simultaneous capture and conversion of H2S into high valuable mercaptan acids using unsaturated acids as starting materials. Good to quantitative conversion was realized with catalytic loading of ILs. Water extraction was employed to separate the product from the reaction system. The kinetic isotherm demonstrated that the addition reaction can achieve 98% conversion at 90 °C and 50 mol% of catalyst loading within 1 h. A plausible reaction-separation-integration strategy was further proposed. This work discloses a green, simple, and mild but effective method for the capture and catalytic conversion of H2S into high valuable mercaptan acids.