(283e) Design of Multiphase Microreactors Using 3D Printing

We present a novel approach for multiphase microreactor design using metal additive manufacturing. While there are numerous examples from the flow chemistry community to set up multiphase micro-flow reactors with commercialized flouropolymer tubings, the hydrodynamics (i.e. Taylor flow), mixing properties, and the product yield in those tubular systems still remain less optimized. Nowadays, the rapid development of metal 3D printing technology (i.e. DMLS) has enabled successful demonstrations of customized microreactors design for various applications, and its better chemical compatibility and heat transfer characteristics are major advantages over polymer reactors. Therefore, in this work, we report our most recent progress in designing multiphase microreactors using metal 3D printing. We create 3D mixing structures to help form micro gas bubbles in a gas-liquid system or similarly facilitate liquid-liquid mixing by generating micro-level liquid droplets, thus increasing the interfacial mass transfer performance. On the one hand, with experimental investigations, we could describe the theory of mixing behind the reactor and discuss how the major parameters (i.e. flowrate of fluids) would influence the mixing performance; on the other hand, the optimized 3D printed reactors are applied to case studies of i) cyclohexane oxidation with oxygen and ii) more challenging synthesis of methylaluminoxane.