Abstract
Ultrasonic small scale flow reactors have found increasing popularity among researchers as they serve as a very useful platform for studying and controlling ultrasound mechanisms and effects. This has led to the use of these reactors for not only research purposes, but also various applications in biological, pharmaceutical and chemical processes mostly on laboratory and, in some cases, pilot scale. This review summarizes the state of the art of ultrasonic flow reactors and provides a guideline towards their design, characterization and application. Particular examples for ultrasound enhanced multiphase processes, spanning from immiscible fluid–fluid to fluid–solid systems, are provided. To conclude, challenges such as reactor efficiency and scalability are addressed.
Highlights
Small scale flow reactors, namely micro and milli-reactors, have great advantages over conventional reactors, such as well-controlled flow patterns and increased surface-to-volume ratios, resulting in enhanced heat and mass transfer rates [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Ultrasonic flow reactors usually consist of an ultrasonic transducer and a microfluidic device
When ultrasound is applied to a liquid–liquid system, cavitation bubbles emulsify the immiscible liquids, significantly increasing the surface area available for mass transfer
Summary
Namely micro and milli-reactors, have great advantages over conventional reactors, such as well-controlled flow patterns and increased surface-to-volume ratios, resulting in enhanced heat and mass transfer rates [1,2,3,4,5,6]. The induced which can intensify mixing [24,37] and interfacial mass transfer [38,39], break up agglomerates cavitation bubble’s resonance size matches that of the channel, making it an ideal platform to investigate [40,41] and detach particles deposited on microchannel surfaces to prevent clogging [42,43,44,45]. (c)water, the cavitation bubble resonance size for low for low frequency ultrasound (20 kHz–1 MHz) and (d) how the associated ultrasonic phenomena frequency ultrasound (20 kHz–1 MHz) and (d) how the associated ultrasonic phenomena match the match the typical size range of micro and milli-reactor channels.
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