The paper presents an analysis of chemical production requirements in an exclusive synthesis market environment and describes how this analysis guided the development of a modular multi-injection reactor. Detailed engineering of a reactor in the light of the requirements of an organometallic reaction, as well as characterization of the reactor is reported. This reactor has provided the target chemistry result at Lonza Ltd. as detailed in a companion paper.

A Grignard reaction performed in a microreactor is presented. The reaction is of type A (highly exothermic and very rapid) and has a low yield which is attributed to a hot spot formed in the mixing zone of the reactor. The reaction yield could be significantly increased by applying the multi-injection principle, leading to better thermal control in the microreactor. Nevertheless, the microreactor plays a major role in reducing the magnitude of the hot spot. Knowing this, it was possible to design and construct an industrial microreactor with significant advantages such as modularity, high flow rate operation, and low investment expenditure (pumps and flow controller minimization).

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