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Overview of Microreactors

Microreactors are small chemical reactors only a few centimeters in size that are constructed from miniaturized reaction channels. They can tolerate high temperatures and pressures, allowing hazardous or explosive reactions to be run safely on a small scale. Microreactors require minimal amounts of reagents and provide faster test results. However, scaling up microreactions for industrial applications remains a challenge and they experience higher wall effects due to their high surface area to volume ratio.

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277 views1 page

Overview of Microreactors

Microreactors are small chemical reactors only a few centimeters in size that are constructed from miniaturized reaction channels. They can tolerate high temperatures and pressures, allowing hazardous or explosive reactions to be run safely on a small scale. Microreactors require minimal amounts of reagents and provide faster test results. However, scaling up microreactions for industrial applications remains a challenge and they experience higher wall effects due to their high surface area to volume ratio.

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Microreactors (General)

Microreactors
(General)

What are
Microreactors?

When most people think of reactors, they


think of the large vessels used in
chemical and refinery plants.
These industrial reactors are well
known for their large size, some are even as large as 500 ft3.
However,
chemical engineers are finding that a new, smaller type
of reactor can be useful in areas the traditional
reactors
cannot. These reactors are called microreactors.

Microreactors are constructed from a network of miniaturized reaction channels. Unlike the large
traditional reactors,
microreactors house chemical reactions to the scale of 5 –
100 ml, and are only a few
centimeters in size

Why are Microreactors


Useful?

Even though microreactors are small, units


can tolerate temperatures and pressures as high as 650° C
and 25
bars. This allows microreactors to carry out, on a small scale,
reactions that are too exothermic or
explosive to run at large scale.

Likewise, certain hazardous material can be


safely handled in only very small quantities and can not be
used
in large-scale processes. A microreactor would be an ideal
reaction vessel for this case.

In addition, microreactors require


minimal amounts of reagents and sample to perform tests, since
the
overall volume in the reactor is low. The small volumes can
also result in getting test results faster. These
advantages,
among others, explain why many different research groups are
using microreactors to
miniaturize medical diagnostic assays. In
fact, the first commercially available microreactors, produced by
a joint collaboration of Caliper Technologies and HP [Link] , are
designed to be used for medical
tests.

What are the


Disadvantages of Microreactors?

Unfortunately, since microreactors are so


small, it is difficult to find practical industrial applications
for
them. Currently, researches are studying how to scale-up
microreactions.

Also, the Surface area to Volume ratio is


higher in microreactors than in normal reactors. This attribute
brings about large wall effects in microreactors. The chemicals
in solution adsorb on the channel walls
thereby resulting in a
loss of chemical concentration.

Want to find out more? Click on the Expert Microreactor page.

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