Multi-injection microstructured reactor for intensification of fast exothermic reactions: proof of concept

Abstract

Quasi-instantaneous exothermic reactions lead to the formation of unwanted hot spots even when carried out in conventional microstructured reactors (MSR) with tube diameter of 100–1000 μm. For this reason, alternative MSR designs are warranted to enable process intensification of fast reactions with characteristic reaction times 0.98 reaching a 500-fold process intensification as compared to the conventional semi-batch process. The temperature profiles monitored by quantitative infrared thermal imaging confirmed an 8-fold reduced temperature rise compared to adiabatic temperature rise, which was achieved by injecting the reactants at three different injection points.

Keywords

• exothermic
• microstructured reactor
• multi-injection
• pseudoionone
• temperature