A novel microchemical system for rapid liquid-liquid chemistry

Microchemical systems are sub-milliliter systems for chemical processes. They are constructed using microfabrication techniques originally developed for the fabrication of microelectronic circuits. The reduction in size, as compared to conventional systems, offers several advantages in improvement of heat and mass transfer and control of flow fields. In addition, microchemical systems are smaller, therefore inherently safer and capable of shorter thermal response times. The focus of this work has been a microchemical system with a multi-inlet contactor for liquid-liquid processes. The systems are fabricated using, primarily, silicon and glass in which feature sizes range from approximately 10 to 500 [mu]m. The multi-inlet contactor consists of 10 alternating inlets for two components. Fluids continuously enter the contactor, are focused by a converging channel, mix and react in a 50 m channel. The contactor is the central element in the microchemical system that also includes a parallel plate heat exchanger, infrared transmission detection capabilities and thin film metal temperature sensors. Quantitative data are obtained using on-chip optical detection methods, integrated thin film sensors, and off-chip pressure sensors. For microchemical systems, the length scales are short. Consequently, Reynolds numbers are small and the flow is laminar. When two or more streams are contacted in a homogeneous system, the flow is stable. The short length scales of the resulting lamellar stream enable rapid diffusion mixing for applications, such as kinetics studies or reaction-rate-limited operation of fast reactions.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Chemical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• Floyd, Tamara M. (Tamara Michelle), 1974-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Klavs F. Jensen and Martin A. Schmidt.

• Chemical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8273

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/8273