Caroussel reactor

Only very low catalyst concentrations down to 5 x 10-5 kmol/m3 are consumed that keeps also the catalyst inventory very small [266], Only 0.08 mg of Rh and about 0.2 mg-13 pg of the very expensive chiral ligands (about 300-1000 /g), depending on their molecular weight, are consumed. Finally, a performance comparison for three different reactors was made for the substrate methylacetamidocinnamate and the two rhodium diphosphine complexes Rh/Josiphos and Rh/Diop (see Figure 4.57). The first reactor was a commercial Caroussel reactor (Radleys... 

Enantioselectivity was roughly the same for the three reactors, being 80-90 and 62-65% for the Rh/Josiphos and Rh/Diop catalysts, respectively [266]. Conversion was very different. For fixed reaction time, the batch reactor and the falling-film microreactor had higher conversions than the Caroussel reactor. This was indicative of operation under mass transfer regime in the latter. On the basis of these data, it was concluded that the mass transfer coefficients kya of the helical falling-film microreactor are in between the boundaries given by the known kta values of 1-2 s 1 for small batch reactors and about 0.01 s-1 for the Caroussel reactor. 

Enantioselectivity was roughly the same for the three reactors, being 80-90% and 62-65% for the Rh/Josiphos and Rh/Diop catalysts, respectively [53], Conversion was very different. For fixed reaction time, the batch reactor and the falling film microreactor had higher conversions than the Caroussel reactor. This was indicative... 

Figure 4.57 Reaction performance comparison of three reactors with the most active catalysts Rh/Josiphos and Rh/Diop. Caroussel (car), helical falling-film microreactor (p) and Parr (batch) reactor (by courtesy of Elsevier) [266]. 9% conv. and 46% conv. denote a fixed conversion of 9 and 46%, respectively, which have to be achieved.

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