Abstract: The production of high-quality lubricating base oil (referred to as base oil) is a significant way for refining companies to enhance economic benefits,alkylation technology is one of the important methods for producing base oil.In this paper, a safe and environmentally friendly chloroaluminate ionic liquid (IL) was selected as the catalyst to catalyze the alkylation reaction of isobutane with 1-hexadecene. The effects of the composition of the IL, as well as the process conditions including reaction temperature, volume ratio of ionicliquid to hydrocarbon (IL/HC), stirring rateand the molar ratio of isobutane to olefin (I/O) on the performance of the alkylation reaction were investigated. The experimental results showed that by using the optimized composite ionic liquid (CIL) [Et₃NH]Cl-1.6AlCl₃-0.3CuCl as a catalyst, along with appropriate volume ratio of IL/HC, raising the molar ratio of I/O, accelerating the stirring rate, and lowering the reaction temperature could effectively enhance the conversion of 1-hexadecene and significantly increase the selectivity of the target C₂₀ component. Under the optimal process conditions of a reaction temperature of 15℃, a stirring rate of 1300 r/min, avolume ratio of IL/HC of 1:2.8 and a molar ratio of I/O of 30:1, the conversion rate of 1-hexadecene could reach 99.8%,the selectivity of C₂₀ components was above 92%, which could meet the quality requirements for group III⁺ lubricating base oil.

Key words: alkylation, ionic liquid, isobutane, hexadecene, lubricants