Microreaction Technology for Process Intensification and High Throughput Screening

Abstract

The advantages of microreactors or microcomponents for unit operations are generally acknowledged today. Promising economical and ecological aspects result from increased selectivities and yields as well as from low specific energy consumption. Large surface area to volume ratios, high gradients of temperature, pressure, concentration and density as well as short response times and pathways characterize typical process engineering aspects of such microdevices. The possibility to integrate a large number of microunits within a comparatively small space opens up two major fields of application. Firstly, production of chemicals, especially fine chemicals, on-site and on-demand can be achieved in a continuous process when a large number of identical units is operated in parallel. Secondly, combinatorial synthesis and high throughput screening can be performed with high efficiency in the field of lead discovery and catalyst development, respectively, when microunits with different functions or different educts are applied. This field of application aims at the generation of a huge amount of information about the properties and interactions of substances. A variety of three-dimensional microfabrication processes, applicable to a diversity of materials, meanwhile allows cheap mass production of microreactors and microreactor components.