High Throughput Screening Reactor

Buchmeiser, M.R., Lubbad, S., Mayr, M. and Wurst, K., Access to silica- and monolithic polymer supported C-C-coupling catalysts via ROMP applications in high-throughput screening, reactor technology and biphasic catalysis, Inorg. Chim. Acta, 2003, 345, 145. 

Another implication of micro reactors for chemical-process engineering involves the provision of accurate, in-depth and reliable experimentation data. This is exem-plarily discussed for high-throughput screening. 

Micro reactors permit high-throughput screening of process chemistries imder controlled conditions, unlike most conventional macroscopic systems [2], In addition, extraction of kinetic parameters from sensor data is possible, as heat and mass transfer can be fully characterized due to the laminar-flow condihons applied. More uniform thermal condihons can also be utilized. Further, reactor designs can be developed in this way that have specific research and development funchons. 

Felcht reports that the testing of industrial-scale processes can be performed with low expenditure by using micro reactors, since this should result in a faster time to market of the development [137]. He also sees uses for micro reactors at the laboratory scale as a means of high-throughput screening and model examinations such as fast determination of reaction kinetics. 

Figure 11.21 Results of high-throughput screening of catalysts in a 384-parallel single-bead reactor in a partial oxidation reaction, (a) Arrangement of inactive and total oxidation catalysts in the reactor, (b) screening results for the conversion of a hydrocarbon at 400°C, 1 mL/min per bead.

Figure 3.12 High-throughput batch reactor used as primary screen for the discovery of aniline cataloreactants. The reactor consists of a circular block with an array of 15 x 10 catalysts [45] (by courtesy of Elsevier Ltd ).

Combinatorial chemistry is one of the important achievements in science in recent years.[116] In the combinatorial synthesis approach, the traditional synthesis rules are replaced by rehable reactions and simple separation methods, allowing the preparation of a large number of products at the same time under the same reaction conditions in a specific reactor, together with rapid analysis and high-throughput screening processes. 

Miniaturization in biocatalysis and fermentation is another necessary step. This will allow continuous processes with the benefits that could derive in terms of process intensification and reduction of waste. Miniature (less than 10 mL) stirred reactors and microtiter plates (MTP) have been introduced mainly with the idea of allowing high-throughput screening to speed up bioprocess development, even though they are available now also for production uses [172-174]. Notably, problems emerge with these miniature bioreactors (MBRs), such as evaporation and surface tension, which determine the performances, but which are masked in larger bioreactors. 

Catalyst testing was carried out in two different reactor systems. Initial tests were done in High Throughput Screening systems and scale up testing was done in a traditional stirred autoclave. 

The High Throughput Screening experiments were performed in a stainless steel multi-well reactor capable of testing up to 40 catalysts at a time, with a maximum working temperature of lOOEC and pressure of 6 Bar. 

Gruter, G.-J.M., Sipos, L. and Dam, M.A. (2012) Accelerating research into bio-based FDCA-polyesters by using small scale parallel film reactors. Combinatorial Chemistry and High Throughput Screening, 15 (2), 180-188. 

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