Fabrication of Components and Systems for Chemical and Biological Microreactors

Optimal design for flow uniformity in microchannel reactors

“…et al, 1993;Wiessmeier et al, 1997 . ⅷ the multiplate reactor geometry, in which the inlet stream is first divided into substreams between microstructured plates and each substream then distributed between the Ž channels of the plate Richter et al, 1997;Ehrfeld et al, 1997; . Tonkovich et al, 1998 . The monolith geometry can exhibit detrimental velocity differences between the channels, due to the formation of Ž stationary vortices in the distribution chamber Walter et al, .…”

Microchemical systems: Status, challenges, and opportunities

“…Microreaction technology is also expected to have an impact on chemical production (Ehrfeld et al, 1998a;Lerou et al, 1996). The high heat-and mass-transfer rates possible in microfluidic systems could allow reactions to be performed under more aggressive conditions with higher yields than achievable with conventional reactors.…”

“…Gas-phase reactors tend to be based on microchannel plates (Figure la) or freestanding thin walls from silicon based MEMS fabrication (Figure lb). Microchannel systems exploit the high heat-transfer rate made possible by the small dimensions (Ehrfeld et al, 1998a) and have the additional advantage of higher chemical productivity per unit volume than MEMS-based devices. Similar to conventional ceramic monolith reactors, however, they suffer from lack of sensing and active control within the microchannel assembly.…”

Implementation of Microreaction Technology in Process Engineering

“…These characteristics affect the chemical process most effectively, e.g. by establishing strong gradients with respect to physical properties along the reaction pathway or enhanced heat management [1,2].…”

“…Since the early beginning of microreaction technology, several microreactor components have been reported on, mostly concerning mixing processes [10] and heat exchanger devices [1,11]. Still there are a lot of activities in this field, now mainly dealing with industrial applications as well as questions of high throughput and cheap mass production of microreactor components.…”