Numerical and Experimental Quantification of the Performance of Microreactors for Scaling-up Fast Chemical Reactions

Microreactors have been utilized for controlling fast chemical reactions. However, the scale-up strategy for fast reactions is not established enough due to the difficulty in quantifying the effect of the reactor size on the mixing performance, heat removal, and observable reaction rate. We present a chart for analyzing the effect of the mixing rate on the observable kinetic constant and a chart for estimating the temperature increase in the reactor. By using these charts, the validity of the rate analysis and the maximum reactor diameter, which control the reaction temperature, were determined. Commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software was employed to solve the partial differential equations and to build the charts, and experiments were conducted to validate the results. We demonstrated the concept by using the ultrafast organolithium reaction in milliseconds. The product throughput was increased eight times with a reactor diameter that was twice as wide as the original reactor.