Modular screening reactor

Figure 2.9 Micro structured and modular screening reactor developed at IMM [25] (source IMM).

Stainless steel is the material of choice for process chemistry. Consequently, stainless steel microreactors have been developed that include complete reactor process plants and modular systems. Reactor configurations have been tailored from a set of micromixers, heat exchangers, and tube reactors. The dimensions of these reactor systems are generally larger than those of glass and silicon reactors. These meso-scale reactors are primarily of interest for pilot-plant and fine-chemical applications, but are rather large for synthetic laboratories interested in reaction screening. The commercially available CYTOS Lab system (CPC 2007), offers reactor sizes with an internal volume of 1.1 ml and 0.1 ml, and modular microreactor systems (internal reactor volumes 0.5 ml to... 

Figure 3.55 Modular set-up of 48-fold parallel gas-phase screening reactor [38] (by courtesy of VDI-Verlag GmbH).

Muller, A., Drese, K., Gnaser, H., Hampe, M., Hessel, V, Lowe, H., Schmitt, S., Zapf, R., Fast preparation and testing methods using a micro-structured modular reactor for parallel gas phase catalyst screening, Catal. Today 81 (2002) 377-391. 

A new approach into reactor modularity has been introduced by Muller et al. [37, 38]. They subdivided the screening process into often used process operations. 

The reactor system of Zech and co-workers [50, 51] is a good example of an integrated approach as it combines devices from different suppliers witha complex screening system. The reactor was manufactured at IMM and the sampling device was provided by AMTEC, Chemnitz. The catalyst and their preparation method were supplied by the TU Chemnitz. The housing of the reactor module consists of 35 stacked frames which can incorporate the same number of catalyst wafers (Figure 3.18). The modular concept of the reactor allows the use of micro structured catalyst wafers made of different materials such as metals, ceramics, silicon and glass. 

A modular reactor similar to the approach of Adler et al. [11] was introduced by Muller and co-workers [37, 38, 56], The screening procedure was separated into a number of process operations. In chemical process engineering, these so-called unit operations are essential components of every complex plant. As catalyst screening involves many different processes such as heat exchange, flow distribution, sampling, analysis and reaction, such a subdivision into unit operations is justified. The flexibility of such a system was demonstrated with two exemplified configurations later, one of which was used for transient studies and one for steady-state experiments (Figure 3.30). 

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