Microtube reactors heat transfer

Figure 6.19 System for evaluation of heat transfer in microsystems (Ml, T-shaped mixer Rl, R2, R3, microtube reactors). The experiments in the absence of a monomer are conducted without using Ml and Rl...

Another advantage of microtube reactors is good heat exchange ability. Heat transfer can occur equally in all directions perpendicular to the flow direction through the inner surface and outer surface of the tube wall. 

The example described above indicates that a numbering-up microflow system consisting of several microtube reactors is quite effective for conducting radical polymerization. Precise temperature control by effective heat transfer, which is one of the inherent advantages of microflow systems, seems to be responsible for the effective control of the molecular-weight distribution. The data obtained with the continuous operation of the pilot plant demonstrate that the microflow system can be applied to relatively large-scale production, and speaks well for the potential of microchemical plants in the polymer industry. 

For butyl acrylate (BA), the molecular weight distribution was found to be narrower than that for the batch reactor, as can be seen in Figure 12.5. The PDI for this polymer is then lower in the microreactor system (Table 12.1). The difference was smaller but still noticeable for benzyl methacrylate (BMA) and methyl methacrylate (MMA) and almost zero for vinyl benzoate (VBz) and styrene (St) (Table 12.2). The authors claimed that the observed results are directly related to the superior heat transfer ability of the microtube reactor. The more exothermic the polymerization reaction. 

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