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Flow Chemistry

Flow Chemistry

 

At TAMI we have the infrastructure and know-how for carrying out special processes in a continuous reactor. In some cases, when there are unique requirements - extreme heat release or a high selectivity process, the operation suffers from extreme conditions. In such cases, batch operations require very low temperatures, long operation times and low yields. For such reactions, we have a special Flow reactor (or Micro-reactor): The micro-reactor enables continuous-flow reactions by employing microfabrication modules (mixer, heat exchanger, etc.) with typical lateral dimensions below 1 mm. The different modules are used for processes such as mixing, reaction and extraction. The surface heating/cooling area to reactor volume ratio is high, close to 2000-2500. This parameter permits the maintaining of the isothermal conditions necessary for highly exothermic reactions.

The technology enables the operation of the reactor up to a pressure of
18 bars and a temperature range between -60oC and 200oC. By superior mixing (with respect to the flow velocity), a reaction in the micro-reactor enables a high mass transfer between the reagents with a short residence time (typically <30 sec.). The relatively small total volume of the micro-reactor (near 90 ml) provides another safety advantage. Scaling up microreactor processes is usually considered to be simple and involves "scale out" (multiplication of the same microreactor setup).