Batch reactor supercritical carbon

Esterification between oleic acid and oleyl alcohol, catalyzed by the Mucor miehei immobihzed hpase in a batch-stirred tank reactor with supercritical carbon dioxide as solvent produced higher reaction rates at supercritical conditions than in the solvent-free system (Knez et al., 1995). 

Reaction performance. Supercritical carbon dioxide was used as a reaction media for the enzymatic synthesis of oleyl oleate directly from oleic acid and oleyl alcohol. Reaction was catalyzed by immobilized lipase from Rhizomucor miehei-Ltpozyme IM. Reactions were carried out in the high pressure batch and continuous reactor. 

Heterogeneously catalyzed hydrogenation reactions can be run in batch, semibatch, or continous reactors. Our catalytic studies, which were carried out in liquid, near-critical, or supercritical C02 and/or propane mixtures, were run continuously in oil-heated (200 °C, 20.0 MPa) or electrically heated flow reactors (400 °C, 40.0 MPa) using supported precious-metal fixed-bed catalysts. The laboratory-scale apparatus for catalytic reactions in supercritical fluids is shown in Figure 14.2. This laboratory-scale apparatus can perform in situ countercurrent extraction prior to the hydrogenation step in order to purify the raw materials employed in our experiments. Typically, the following reaction conditions were used in our supercritical fluid hydrogenation experiments catalyst volume, 2-30 mL total pressure, 2.5-20.0 MPa reactor temperature, 40-190 °C carbon dioxide flow, 50-200 L/h ... 

Recently, reactions under supercritical conditions have been investigated. For example, styrene oxide is converted to styrene carbonate 32 at 150°C in the presence of dimethyl formamide without a catalyst (Scheme 56) ", but substrates are rather limited and propylene oxide does not react under similar conditions. On the other hand, solid catalysts on a fixed-bed flow reactor are being invesfigafed as a replacement for batch processes. " The reactivity of solid catalysts is usually lower than... 

---