Miniaturization microreactors

Miniaturizing Microreactors and Fuel Cells 4471 7.1. Present Status 4486... 

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P., Development of a microreactor for chemical production, in Ehreeld, W., Rinard, 1. H., Wegeng, R. S. (Eds.), Process Miniaturization 2nd International Conference on Microreaction Technology, IMRET 2, Topical Conf. Preprints, pp. 39-44, AlGhE, New Orleans (1998). 

Lu H, Schmidt MA, Jensen KF (2001) Photochemical Reactions and On-Line UV Detection in Microfabricated Reactors. Lab Chip 1 22-28 Manz A, Harrison DJ, Verpoorte EMJ, Fettinger JC, Ludi H, Widmer HM (1991) Miniaturization of Chemical-Analysis Systems - A Look into next Century Technology or just a Fashionable Craze. Chimia 45 103-105 McCreedy T (1999) Reducing the Risks of Synthesis. Chem Ind 15 588-590 McCreedy T (2000) Fabrication Techniques and Materials Commonly Used for the Production of Microreactors and Micro Total Analytical Systems. Trac Trends Anal Chem 19 396-401... 

Miniaturized chemical analysis systems have been developed for most macroscopic counterparts (Dittrich et al. 2006). The availability of optical fibers, light sources, and detectors in the visible UV and near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths makes it possible to integrate spectroscopic measurements in microreactors (Lobbecke et al. 2005). Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) is an efficient, broadly applicable... 

Microreactor technology also offers a contemporary way of conducting chemical reactions in a more sustainable fashion due to the miniaturization and increased safety, and also in a technically improved manner due to intensified process efficiency. This relatively new technology is implemented in novel and improved applications and is getting more and more used in chemical research. 

The miniaturized conditions provided a suitable setting for this reaction, affording several important benefits. First, in microreactor environment this highly exothermic process demanded no additional cooling, whereas the reaction in batch needs to be conducted at 0°C. In addition to this, instant TOF-MS analysis proved the formation of the nitrilium cation intermediate, thus proving the reaction mechanism that was speculative until then. Another advantage of the reactor directly connected to the analyzer is the convenience and the speed of the reaction optimization. 

Microreactors are miniaturized reaction systems with fluid channels of very small dimensions, perhaps 0.05-1 mm [29]. They are a relatively new development, and... 

Micromixing technologies have only recently been applied to the design of miniaturized devices for chemical applications, so called microreactors. The main components of such microreactors are mixers and heat exchangers. 

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... 

A. J., Schmidt, M. A., Jensen, K. F., A suspended-tube microreactor for thermally-effident fuel processing, in Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Microreaction Technology, IMRET 6 (11-14 March 2002), AIChE Pub. No. 164, New Orleans, 2002,147-158. Tanaka, S., Chang, K.-S., Min, K.-B., Satoh, D., Yoshida, K., Esashi, M., MEMS-based components of a miniature fuel cell/fuel reformer system, Chem. 

Many potential applications are under study. Miniature chemical reactors could be used for portable applications in which they provide advantages of rapid startup and shutdown and of increased safety (intensification by requiring only small quantities of hazardous materials). The development of chip-scale chemical and biological analysis systems has the potential to reduce the time and cost associated with conventional laboratory methods. These devices could be used as portable analysis systems for detection of hazardous chemicals in air and water. There is considerable interest in using a microreactor to provide in situ production of hydrogen for small-scale fuel-cell power applications by conducting a reformation reaction from some liquid hydrocarbon raw material (e.g., methanol). 

The field of chemical process miniaturization is growing at a rapid pace with promising improvements in process control, product quality, and safety, (1,2). Microreactors typically have fluidic conduits or channels on the order of tens to hundreds of micrometers. With large surface area-to-volume ratios, rapid heat and mass transfer can be accomplished with accompanying improvements in yield and selectivity in reactive systems. Microscale devices are also being examined as a platform for traditional unit operations such as membrane reactors in which a rapid removal of reaction-inhibiting products can significantly boost product yields (3-6). 

The modern methods of three dimensional microfabrication have lead to the development of extremely miniaturized chemical and biotechnological systems. These so called microreactors represent novel approaches in respect of production flexibility and chemical reactions not yet applied in chemical processing. This has stimulated world-wide research in this field so that the technical feasibility of such devices has been demonstrated in the laboratory scale. 

Microreactors for fast single reactions Continuous flow systems with relatively short miniaturized paths... 

The connections for fluid contact have the task of ensuring ingress of the starting materials to the microreactor and egress of the products. They are normally miniature hoses made of PTFE or pipes made of chemically resistant stainless steel. Common diameters are 1 /8 and 1 /16 in fittings with 1/4 in UNF thread are employed for PTFE hoses and the steel tubing is fixed with jubilee dips. A variety of methods are used to fix compatible connection points on the microreactor. Here three of them will be described. 

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