The Spinning Disk Reactor for Polymers and Nanoparticles

Abstract

The preparation of reactive polyurethanes, the photopolymerization, and copolymerization of acrylates in emulsion as well as solution and the precipitation and reactive precipitation to prepare BaSO4 and silver nanoparticles, respectively, employing a spinning disk reactor (SDR) are summarized. The advantages of an SDR (excellent mass and heat transfer, minimal energy, and material usage, easy scale up as well as flexibility) are discussed. Where experiments are described comparing the SDR with traditional batch processes, known, optimized industrial batch processes are chosen. In all cases, the SDR could be shown to yield equivalent product quality while having procedural advantages.

Process intensification of dendritic fibrous nanospheres of silica (DFNS) via continuous flow: a scalable and sustainable alternative to the conventional batch synthesis

“…Based on the abundant precedent support on continuous flow emulsification, we contemplated the use of spinning disc reactors (SDR) for reaction optimization and scalable emulsion synthesis. 57 Commercially available SDRs such as Flowid® SpinPro R-10 have remained of special interest in production-scale synthesis of emulsions 58 due to their ability to exert accurate control on particle size regardless of feed flow rates up to at least 600 L h −1 . In addition to this, the very high shear produced in its multiple rotor-stator arrangement assures very high mass- and heat-transfer as the process fluid is confined to only a micrometer-thick layer inside the reactor.…”

Non-fouling flow reactors for nanomaterial synthesis

“…96,97 Syntheses of iron oxide, titanium dioxide, silver, curcumin and chitosan nanoparticles have been demonstrated in spinning disc reactors, with no clogging reported. 96,98–102…”

Process intensification connects scales and disciplines towards sustainability

“…For applications in chemical engineering and chemicals synthesis, the disk usually carries a catalyst; the thin film and the catalyst are then in intimate contact. SDRs applications to reactions include production of polymers, [61,62] synthesis of pharmaceutical products (eg, Darzen and Knoevenagel's reaction), [60] and photocatalytic applications. [63]…”