The DeanHex Reactor

This new prototype of the HEX reactor made of ceramic (SiC) has been developed in under a collaboration between BOOSTEC and our laboratory [22]. BOOSTEC is a French innovative small and medium enterprise (SME), specializing in a high-performance all-SiC components and systems. The sintered SiC provides a unique combination of key advantages for the production of high-performance components or systems  

Flow rate Reynolds Residence Pressure drop Compacity Eictor Thermal 

The reactor has been designed for a nominal range of flow rates from 1 to 101 h. In such a range, the reactor offers interesting performances as shown in Table 12.3. 

It is important to note that the compacityfactor is defined by the ratio of the surface area offered to heat transfer over the volume of the reactive medium. The thermal performances are estimated from the product between this compacity factor and the global heat-transfer coefficient. Consequently, owing to the large value of this factor combined with the conductivity performances of the SiC material, the heat-exchange performances are expected to be very high, which can be noticed from the last column of this table. 

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In the following part, four reactors that have been extensively studied in our lab are described the open plate reactor (OPR) - the Alfa-Laval reactor technology (ART ) plate reactor, the Shimtec reactor from Chart Industries, the Corning (glass reactor), and the DeanHex reactor which has been constructed with SiC and stainless steel. 

For instance, the mixing performances of different channel designs for the DeanHex reactor have been investigated in our lab, and the respective operating conditions are given in Table 12.6, while Figure 12.7 shows the mixing time versus the Reynolds number. 

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