Over the past few years, a large focus for manufacturing has been on developing and transferring new techniques, such as additive manufacturing, into production environments. However, large volume chemical synthesis is often overlooked when discussing advanced manufacturing methods. The emphasis on greener production and safer work environments has become a strong driver when investigating improvements to current batch reactor systems. Microfluidics and microreactor technology have been investigated as a potential replacement for the current inefficient methods. Microfluidic synthesis offers a rapid and continuous process to chemical synthesis that also allows flexibility in a specialty production environment due to improved reproducibility and rapid heat transfer. After initial success developing a peroxide that was no longer available commercially, recent efforts have focused on producing a bismaleimide (BMI) material used in removable epoxy foams applications. While the overall reaction was straightforward, several issues to continuous production arose such as clogging and hydrolyzing reagents. Those challenges were addressed and the process optimized to address future production needs.

Optimization of bismaleimide synthesis for production via microfluidics

252nd National Meeting (2016)

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