Industrial Designs and Use of Microreactors.
Event details
| Date | 20.05.2011 |
| Hour | 10:15 |
| Speaker | Dr. D. Roberge, Department of Process Research, LONZA Ltd., Visp, Switzerland. |
| Location |
ME C2405
|
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Microreactor Technology enables processes to be run in a continuous manner using a minimal quantity of reagent. Thus, it permits the rapid and scalable development of continuous processes in the fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Under such circumstances, advantages are associated to the continuous way of operation and to the micro structure as well such as the good thermal control. It is important to differentiate from where the advantage is coming from because it will significantly influence the scale up strategy for larger productions.
In the fine chemical industry, productions are made in multi-purpose plants of high flexibility. The integration of a continuous system is such an environment is feasible given appropriate modules are employed with (i) good chemical resistance (i.e. glass, Hastelloy, Teflon), with (ii) excellent material stability over a large range of temperatures, and with (iii) ease of connection avoiding dead volume. In addition the various modules need to take into account the physico-chemical properties of the reaction such as the reaction kinetics (==> residence time) and the reaction phases (solid – liquid – gas). This approach leads systematically to a toolbox concept.
A detailed analysis at Lonza showed that ca. 50% of the reactions studied could fit into a microreactor based on their kinetic. However, by taking into account the reaction phases, this number shrinks to ca. 20% of potential candidates because a solid phase is present in more than 60% of the cases. In addition, the reactions were classified into 3 classes namely Type A (mixing controlled reactions), Type B (rapid but kinetically controlled reactions), and Type C reactions (batch reactions with thermal hazard).
The 3 types of reaction define of course 3 types of reactor modules required to operate in a flexible manner various pharmaceutical reactions. This talk will present an analysis of the industrial designs of reactors, review their use, and address in details the scale-up concept. The Lonza MicroReactors have already produced several tons of material. Thus, manufacturing examples will be presented based on Lonza experience showing the applicability of continuous processes and microreactors in an industrial environment.
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