(83ac) Scale-out Concepts in Chemical Micro Process Engineering Exemplified on Production Oriented Case Studies

A major focus of
IMMxs current work in the area of Chemical Micro Process Engineering is the
transfer of (micro)structured components and microreactor based processes from
lab to pilot and production scale. This topic is especially addressed in the
two German public funded BMBF projects µ.Pro.Chem (Förderkennzeichen 16SV1991)
and POKOMI (Förderkennzeichen 16SV1981) and the integrated EU-project IMPULSE.
Within these projects different application areas are considered:

·             
Gas/liquid process (ozonolysis) in falling film microreators
with an aimed pilot scale of 10 l/h liquid throughput and a production scale of
about 100 ? 1000 l/h (project µ.Pro.Chem).[1]

·             
Liquid/liquid process (Suzuki-polycondensation
for OLED material synthesis) in microsturctured reactors or reactors with microporous
metallic foams for production throughputs in the range of a few to several
liters per hour (project POKOMI).[2]

·             
Surfactant dispersion in the context of liquid
fabric enhancer production with a lab scale of about 10 l/h and an aimed pilot
scale of about 1000 l/h (project IMPULSE Task 3.3).[3]

·             
High exothermic single phase ionic liquid
synthesis with an aimed pilot scale of about 8 l/h (project IMPULSE Task 2.1).[4]

The approaches
to reach larger throughputs in these application examples will be outlined
supplemented by additional processes from IMM working areas but also by
examples from literature (e.g. [5]). Furthermore, it is aimed to derive there from
generic learning on the topic of scale-out approaches in Micro Chemical Process
Engineering.

[1]        Vankayala, B.K., Loeb, P., Hessel, V., Menges,
G., Hofmann, C., Metzke, D., Krtschil, U., Kost, H.-J., International Journal
of Chemical Reactor Engineering, accepted for publication.

[2]        Hessel, V., Rothstock, S., Agar, D.W., Jadhavrao,
P., Löb, P., Werner, B., in: Conference proceedings, 2007, AIChE spring
national meeting: April 22-27, 2007, Houston. ? New York: AIChE, 2007, 74d.

[3]        Löb, P., Hessel, V., Hensel, A., Simoncelli,
A., Chimica Oggi (Chemistry Today) 25, 3 (2007) 26-29.

[4]        Löb, P., Hessel, V., Krtschil, U., Löwe,
H., Chimica Oggi (Chemistry Today) 24, 2 (2006) 46-50.

[5]        Iwasaki, T., Kawano, N., Yoshida, J., Org.
Process Res. Dev. 10 (2006) 1126-1131.