Tools for chemical synthesis in microsystems

Abstract

Chemical synthesis in microsystems has evolved from simple proof-of-principle examples to become a general technique in academia and industry. Numerous such "flow chemistry" applications are now found in pharmaceutical and fine chemical synthesis. Much of the development has been based on systems employing macroscopic flow components and tubes, rather than the integrated chip technology envisioned by the lab-on-a-chip community. We review the major developments in systems for flow chemistry and discuss limitations underlying the development of chip-scale integrated systems.

Energy Optimization of Gas–Liquid Dispersion in Micronozzles Assisted by Design of Experiment

“…Hence, high energy input is necessary to sustain flow. Therefore, rather low Reynolds numbers are often prominent in microchannels [43]. Turbulent flows can only be achieved with comparatively high energy input.…”

Chemical reaction engineering, process design and scale-up issues at the frontier of synthesis: Flow chemistry

“…Finally, a MW assisted microreactor for organic synthesis is described by Somerville et al [136] and some examples of commercial integrated microreacting systems have been recently reviewed [137].…”

Efficient kinetic experiments in continuous flow microreactors

“…They provide the benefits of ease of process automation, higher heat and mass transfer rates and a more straightforward incorporation of inline analysis tools compared to traditional batch setups. [6][7][8][9][10][11] Continuous flow systems have been used for complex chemical synthesis, [12][13][14][15] gas-phase reactions, [16][17][18][19] photochemistry, [20][21][22][23] electrochemistry, 24,25 and reaction optimization [26][27][28] but their robustness for reaction kinetics is hindered by the need to take steady state measurements. [29][30][31][32] Recent studies have shown that transient flow data could be used to quickly generate kinetic data.…”