From laboratory demonstrators over systems to indispensable process plantsAugust 15, 2002Today microreactors are already valuable informants for the process development in the laboratory area. According to a study of the French consulting company YOLE Développement and Institut für Mikrotechnik Mainz GmbH (IMM) the readiness of industry clients to buy such microreaction components for chemical process development rests with 36 million Euro worldwide already this year. The supposed annual growth rate of 3% follows a conservative approach. For selected chemical processes microreactors can be used for production purposes, above all within the field of speciality chemicals. The study predicts that microreactors will be applied in larger scale as process plants for the industrial production already from the year 2005. IMM is well prepared: components are sold as small series and customised systems are developed for different processes during joint industrial projects. The proclaimed construction of complete chemical factories „in a suit case" will remain a ficition. Already today micro-structured components must suffice the demands of the chemical plant technologies. Plant conceptions for micro-chemical process technology applied at the IMM are therefore based on a hybrid approach. Attuned to the particular chemical process, the microstructured components of the IMM are used as part of conventional fluidic peripheries specially built for this. Such complete microreactor plants are for example new IMM laboratory structures for organic synthesis, heterogeneous catalysis and reforming technologies. For the latter steam-reforming-reactors and vaporization-components are ready. During the propane steam reforming with Rh / Al2O3 - respectively Rh / Pt / CeO2 / Al2O3 - plated reforming catalysts and temperatures of about 700 °C one of these plants reaches an almost entire conversion in milliseconds contact periods. Laboratory and production plants with microreactors can absolutely be large. The size of the plants - consequently the embedding of the microreactors in conventional technologies - stands for robustness and reliability. Despite their size, plants equipped with microstructured hightech components remain valuable and cost-efficient in contrast to the state of the art. This is especially owed to the achievable and partially enormous process-intensification, which guarantees an increase of the yield up to a figure of 25% for industrially relevant reactions. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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