Experimental comparison on efficiency of alkaline hydrolysis reaction in circular microreactors over conventional batch reactor

Abstract

<span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US">Alkaline hydrolysis, a nucleophilic substitution reaction was performed in microchannel tubes and the reaction efficiency was investigated and compared with conventional batch method. Reaction between n-butyl acetate and sodium hydroxide, a fast alkaline hydrolysis was employed as a specimen. The reactions were performed in a simple circular T-Junction microreactor. The riveting natures of T-Junction channels are they could facilitate the formation of rich variety of slug flow patterns. The diameters of the microchannels were scaled down from 1200 µm to 400 µm over a range of 1200 µm, 1000 µm, 800 µm, 600 µm and 400 µm. We- observed a steady increase in reaction efficiency down the diameter scale for a non-varying reactant concentration. In addition to varying diameter, parameters like flow rate of reactants, length of the microchannels were also varied for better understanding about the complexion of alkaline hydrolysis reaction in a microscale platform. The experimental observations reveal that microchannels with minimum diameter are dominant in reaction efficiency over larger diameter channels and highly supreme over conventional batch reactor.

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