(426a) Continuous Flow Reactors of Microchannels for Pharmaceuticals and Fine Chemicals

This presentation will highlight the breakthrough technology of continuous flow reactors in the area of fine chemical synthesis, enabling fewer reagents, less discarded materials, high throughput, more efficiency, increased safety and reduced environmental impact. Conventional ?batch? synthesis with mixing and reactions done in bulky vessels often generates by-products, may even represent a safety issue when dangerous processes or highly toxic reagents are involved.

Flow reactors continuously and efficiently stream chemicals in a highly controlled manner. Given the high level of optimization, significant savings can be realized by bringing together fewer reagents to obtain the same amount of final product achieved by batch. This presentation will highlight the process intensification, ease of process scale-up of a continuous 2-step synthesis of one bio-fuel related application. It will demonstrate how effectively to apply advanced flow glass reactors consisting of millimeter-scale microchannel modules to overcome the limitation of reaction equilibrium and to enhance heterogeneous reactions involving dangerous chemicals, where a precise control of the reaction conditions offered by advanced flow reactor has crucial impact on the selectivity. A robust, green and safer industrial-scale process will be also described.