Development of a scale up method for multiphase reactions based on in situ measurement of heat mixing

Conventional scale-up methods for chemical reactions focus on heat transfer to prevent reaction runaway at the largest scale. The developed models usually lack detail with respect to mass transfer, e.g. simple extrapolation models based on similarity of reactor and stirrer geometry are used. Consequently, the mixing efficiency in the reactor is only captured globally, not as a local quantity, which results in the need for optimizing the model parameters on each scale (lab, pilot, full scale). However, the proper description of local mixing is crucial for the scale-up of multiphase systems. The novel method developed in this project will simultaneously quantify the scalability of heat and mass transfer, which will result in identical reaction conversion on each scale. As a result, this new heat pulse method will guide the scale-up of homogeneous and heterogeneous reacties in batch reactors directly from the lab to industrial scale.

Keywords:heat mixing, multiphase reactions, scale up method

Disciplines:Inorganic chemistry, Organic chemistry, Theoretical and computational chemistry, Other chemical sciences