Abstract
A microreactor module for high temperature catalytic reaction was designed and fabricated. The design concept of this module is aimed at multiple combined catalyst bed, fast forced composition cycling, high performance heat transfer during reaction, and high linear velocity impossible in the conventional reactor. The microreactor module consists of a parallel array of ten microreactor units. Each unit is made of two aluminium plates (Plate-A, Plate-B) connected in series, and each plate has ten parallel microchannels. The width, depth and length of the channels for Plate-A are 0.5 mm, 0.2 mm and 650 mm respectively. The channels of Plate-B are the same as those of Plate-A except the depth (0.5 mm). The RTD curve of the microreactor module was calculated from the pulse response results. It was concluded that forced composition cycling could be performed within a period of 2-5 seconds. Moreover, the gas seemed to flow equally to all the channels and units. Neither by-passing flow nor stagnation by deformation of the microchannel during pressurization and heating were observed. Oxidative coupling of propene was studied by a conventional labolatry scale reactor. When the amount of catalyst was fixed and the flow rate was increased, the production rate of benzene was increased. It was concluded that the degree of surface oxidation has a great influence on the production rate of benzene. This reaction is applied to a microreactor which has very high linear velocity.
