Microreaction technology and applications: 3-printed microreactors

Continuous-flow microreaction technology has exhibited intrinsic advantages of reduced chemical consumption, design for energy efficiency, and inherently safe chemistry. In here, I present various microreactors and their applications that have been achieved at our laboratory, as long as time is allowed

1. Automated Chemical Process

• A total process concept was applied to carcinogenic, explosive, toxic, or noxious regents (diazomethane, isocyanides, diazoacetate, chloromethyl methyl ether) by serially conducting the generation, its purification, its utilization for a desired synthesis.
• Various microseparations on the basis of different principles such as liquid-liquid extraction, liquid-gas distillation, membrane separation in purifying the generated reagents were demonstrated.
• Unstable intermediate with short-life time was generated and reacted with a infused reagent, which performed within 330 μsec for outpacing Fries rearrangement through microfluidic rapid mixing

2. 3D Printed Ceramic Microreactor

The versatile structures of 3D-printed preceramic monoliths with 1~11 cm scale were fabricated from a modified polyvinylsilazane resin as a novel single precursor, then transformed to silicon carbonitride (SiCN) ceramic bodies upon pyrolytic conversion to 1000 °C. The fully dense SiC-based ceramic microreactor with excellence in thermal and chemical stability was extended to devise a hydrogen production system by decomposition of corrosive ammonia gas at high temperatures upto 1000 °C