Diverse Industrial Pilot-oriented Involvements

Bayer Company operates several microprocess plants. Clariant GmbH has formed a competence center on microreaction technology in early 2004 to offer the technology in its custom synthesis business. Lonza has also used microreaction technology over years for pharmaceutical customers. The pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb, Lucent Technologies, and the Stevens Institute work on a public funded project on hydrogenation reactions [84]. They started with a model reaction, the hydrogenation of o-nitroanisole to o-anisidine, and will move to proprietary reactions. 

The reaction engineering uses the innovative approach of fixing single Pd/C catalyst particles in thousands of small microstructured traps [84]. This is a mixed 

Dow Chemical in Midland, MI, USA, the microprocess technologist Velocys in Plain City, OH, USA, and PNNL in Richland, WA, USA, as research institute in microreactor technology work on a pubUc funded project on high-intensity production of ethylene and other olefins by oxidation such as the formation of ethylene from ethane [4]. A two-step reactor engineering is performed, starting with a hench-scale reactor with microchannel dimensions equal to the later commercial unit and followed by numbering to the latter. An economic analysis with focus on reactor costs and energy consumption completes the project. 

At Sigma-Aldrich, a pilot study was performed for the transfer of microreactor technology into large-scale production for the synthesis of 2-benzoylpyridine through a Grignard reaction [85]. They transferred the small-scale 2 ml microreactor processes to production in a stainless steel Alfa Laval Art plate reactor and achieved rapid flow rates and continuous production of 200-300 kg of 2-benzoylpyridine per day. 

There have been also advancements in the pharmaceutical industry. Thus, DSM designed a microreactor system to produce a few hundred tons of naproxcinod per year [86]. 

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