Microstructured fine chemical/pharmaceutical industry

The prominent industries that benefited from microstructured devices are pharmaceutical, specialty, and fine chemical industry. A few micro-plants have been developed and successfully tested in the laboratory as well as on commercial sites... 

Regular flow patterns are provided by the segmented flow in a single capillary or in multi-channel microreactors. Miniaturized packed-bed microreactors follow the paths of classical engineering by enabling tridde-bed or packed bubble column operation. M ost of the microstructured multiphase reactors are at the research stage. Due to the small reaction volumes th will find their appHcation mainly in small-scale production in the fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries. 

Evaluation studies in industry have shown that microreactors can significantly contribute to improved chemical production. In principle, a variety of chemical reactions in the liquid phase or the gas phase can be carried out readily for the production of fine and specialty chemicals and active pharmaceutical ingredients. Nevertheless, it has to be said that so far no widespread use of microreactors has occurred. The main reasons for this is the lack of microstructured unit operations that can be connected easily with the reactor modules. In only a few examples has purification been implemented directly in the microreactor, as mentioned earlier... 

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