Microreactors
Microreactor technology aims at process intensification and has attracted great interest in the fine chemical and the pharmaceutical industries. With a radial dimension smaller than 1 mm, gravity effects become negligible and surface forces start to play a major role. For multiphase flows, such characteristics result in flow phenomena not observed on the macro-scale. Therefore, investigation of fundamentals of flow behavior becomes essential to realize full potential of microreactor technology since many standard macro-scale processes cannot be applied to the on-chip devices. Microreactors are usually operated in a continuous mode and offer many advantages over conventional scale reactors including improved energy efficiency with high heat and mass transfer rates due to increased surface-to-volume ratio and a narrow residence time distribution. Not only campaigns in macro-scale reactors would benefit from continuous processing, but microfabricated systems are also advantageous to production as they allow finer degree of process control, and the use of more aggressive conditions such as hazardous media or high pressures. Our research focuses both on the realization of various process units on micro-scale as well as on the use of microtechnology in flow chemistry (single and multiphase flow).
Keywords:
microreactor, multiphase flows, continuous processing, extraction, capillary separation, high pressure, heterogeneous catalysis, CO2 utilization, energy production, in situ spectroscopy