Microreactors characteristics

Electrophoretic microfluidic chips feature a number of microreactor characteristics and have been used for conducting chemical and biochemical reactions in channels and microfabricated chambers, mixing reagents, microextraction and microdialysis, post- and preseparation derivatizations, etc. The most recent achievements are reviewed in Ref. 63 and other similar publications. These integrated microdevices perform PCR amplification, cell sorting, enzymatic assays, protein digestion, affinity-based assays, etc. In this section we describe such integrated microsystems and the most recent advances in this field. 

The microreactor shown in Fig. 1 can be regarded as a continuous-flow reactor equivalent to the common batch reactor flask. The microreactor has a mixer section that provides more precise mixing characteristics than those typically achievable in a stirred vessel. For example, in the... 

High-throughput testing was accomplished using a system of 16 continuous fixed-bed parallel microreactors, able to work up to 80 bar. The principal characteristics of this reactor are summarized as ... 

A measure that has been the subject of extensive publication is that of microreactors with catalytically coated walls (7,8). A microreactor has been defined as a miniaturized reaction vessel with characteristic dimensions in the range 10-300 pm which has been fabricated using state-of-the-art high-precision engineering (7). Such reactors exhibit well-defined laminar-flow patterns and permit facile scale-up by simple numbering up of the number of channels and flexible... 

The excellent heat transfer characteristics of microreactors result not only from their considerably enhanced specific heat exchange surface areas of 30,000 m2/m3—a value roughly 300 times higher than that in a conventional multitubular reactor—but also from the rapid lateral heat transfer across the channels. 

The capillary plasma reactor consists of a Pyrex glass body and mounted electrodes which are not in direct contact with the gas flow in order to eliminate the influence of the cathode and anode region on CO2 decomposition. Analysis of downscaling effects on the plasma chemistry and discharge characteristics showed that the carbon dioxide conversion rate is mainly determined by electron impact dissociation and gas-phase reverse reactions in the capillary microreactor. The extremely high CO2 conversion rate was attributed to an increased current density rather than to surface reactions or an increased electric field. 

The distinctive fluid flow, thermal and chemical kinetic behavior, observed in microreactors, as well as their size and energy characteristics, contribute to their usefulness in diverse applications [1-3] including ... 

These matrices have been used as chromatographic stationary phases for both enantiomeric and stereoisomeric separations [8], as artificial antibodies in immunoassay-type analyses [7], as microreactors for stereoselective synthesis [9] and as catalysts [10,11] and equilibrium-shifters [12,13] for a variety of reactions. Since MIPs can be produced for such a wide variety of molecules, these characteristics have led many researchers to investigate the possibilities of employing MIPs as the... 

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