Microreactor has proven to be efficient for controlling the fluid mixing to achieve good degree of reaction control. Microreactor is particularly suited for very fast and exothermic reactions that can take full advantage of the rapid heat and mass transfers in narrow reaction spaces to achieve improved reaction performance (i.e., better conversion, selectivity, yield or safety). It is however agreed that the greatest need and potentially the biggest impact of the microreactor would be in synthesis of high value products including fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals and nanomaterials. Many fine chemical reactions of interest are constrained by unfavorable thermodynamics that could benefit from the membrane reactor operation. Selective product removal could improve the product purity and achieve supra-equilibrium conversions, whereas the selective addition of a reactant could eliminate hot spots and enhance the product selectivity. Glycerol carbonate is one of the glycerol derivates that are attracting increasing scientific and industrial interest as a clean and renewable chemical feedstock. CO2 has been used as a carbonylating agent under supercritical condition but its experimental conditions are highly demanding. By developing heterogeneous catalysts that are particularly efficient for cabonylation of glycerol with urea or acetone, one can obtain good product yield under more moderate reaction conditions. The team has recently reported a novel hierarchical Co3O4/ZnO catalyst prepared by dry nanodispersion for the carbonylation of glycerol. The catalytic reaction was demonstrated in a microreactor with the flow channels coated with a thin layer of the catalysts. Higher conversion and selectivity was observed compared to batch reaction and further conversion enhancement was achieved when a membrane reactor was used. The selective removal of byproduct (i.e., NH3) across the membrane not only lead to higher yield but also better product purity.

Glycerol carbonylation in a microreactor

248th National Meeting (2014)

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