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Microreactor technology (MRT) or flowchemistry is an upcoming technology in the fine-chemistry and pharmaceutical industry. The excellent mass- and heat-transfer properties of microreactors give this technology many advantages over batchwise chemistry:
- higher yield and selectivity
- inherently safer processes
- straight forward scaling-up
- continuous production possible
- improved reactor control
- enables new chemistry
Microreactor chips (0.1 µl - 20 µl)
Micronit offers several off-the-shelf microreactor chips as well as the opportunity to design your own custom chips. These microreactor chips are the best to start your microreactor experiments and screen reaction parameters. The small internal volume saves expensive reagent consumption, ensures excellent mass- and heat-transfer, and the small hold-up during the synthesis is inherently safe.
The microreactor chips are made of borosilicate glass and are compatible with the Fluidic Connect 4515 chip holder.
Microreactors (1 - 5 ml)
Promising candidate reactions for microreactor chemistry can easily be scale-up using micronit's microreactors. With internal volumes of several milliliters these reactors can yield hundreds of grams of product to several kilo's per day. The channel dimensions of 1-2mm result in low pressure drop, low chance of channel blockage with solid particles, while maintaining all the advantages of microrecatror technology. Micronit offers custom design as well as an off-the-shelf reactor design. Heating and cooling channels can also be integrated in your custom designs.
The microreactors are made of borosilicate glass and are compatible with the Connection Frame 1507.
MicroReactor modules (10-100ml)
Scale-up to production volumes when using traditional batch-wise chemistry is often laborious, costly, time-consuming, and there is no guarantee of success. The reason is that by changing the size of the vessel also the mass- and heat-transfer properties change. With microreactors these problems can be avoided by simply adding more similar reactor modules (scale-out). Micronit's microreactor modules are created by stacking multiple microreactors in one block. This has several advantages over other systems;
- The channel dimensions, and therefore the reaction conditions, will be the same as those in the microreactor
- Multiple microreactors in one modules eliminates the need for additional pumps, flowcontrollers, pressure sensors, etc.
- Integrating multiple microreactors in one design saves precious lab-space
One reactor block can contain multiple parallel reactors which can be used to produce up to tonnes of product per year.
References;
Application note; Scale-up of a Paal-Knorr reaction. Download here.
- Press release; "Micronit develops microreactor module for use in industrial production". The module of 100 ml reaction volume is currently being evaluated by DSM Pharmaceutical Products. more
Stacking multiple layers in one reactor module allows the incorporation of heating and cooling channels
See also Access2Flow for more information on batch-to-flow translations up to production scale.
Complete Microreactor systems
In cooperation with Micronit Microfluids the company FutureChemistry develops and markets complete microreactor systems for laboratory environments.