Perfect Reactor Research Articles

Green Chemistry and Process Intensification: Milestones on a Sustainable Development

As a philosophical support, green chemistry (GC) becomes at present well-combined into the scientific system to assist scientists and engineers consider how to decrease or remove waste and avert the employment and formation of hazardous substances in the design phase of chemicals. Such design attempts in turn affect the full life-cycle of the chemical, from getting the starting materials until the end-use product is recycled or disposed of. There is a considerable advance noted in such direction during the last three decades, this review focuses on GC research. As a comparatively fresh technique, revision in process intensification (PI) is fast and investigation could rapidly lead to outstanding outcomes. However, numerous features of PI could take more time to be fact. Much of the study stays in academic and industrial laboratories, even if large-scale implementations of micro-reactors are actuality. Fields of PI enterprise that have progressed quickly are the expansion of carbon capture techniques, an increasing interest in GC, and the beginning of momentous study into connecting solar energy to intensified methods like chemical reactions. Electric fields (e.g., microwaves and ultrasound) are observed in larger usages, and the application of electrokinetic forces at the micro- and nanoscale persist to fascinate. Huge investigations are working for the sake of ideas like the perfect reactor. PI remains a motif leading to attain a sustainable society. This work may be an orientation in the investigation of product development and design, production and application, in a constructive and stimulating way.

Towards Perfect Reactors: Gaining full control of chemical transformations at molecular level

Enhanced molecular reaction control is one of the major breakthrough routes for achieving maximally sustainable and efficient chemical processes. Numerous fundamental works on this topic can be seen in literature and it is now the key challenge to advance them in an interdisciplinary way towards the industrial implementation of what can be envisaged as Perfect Reactors. In such reactors control of the molecular alignment and geometry of collisions as well as selective and efficient activation of the reacting molecules are the central issues to be tackled. In the paper the current status of molecular-level control of chemical transformations is reviewed by describing methods for alignment and orientation control such as nanostructured confinement and the application of external fields. The latter method is also instrumental for local and selective energy supply in chemical processes. Finally, the use of transient operation can lead to more efficient processing, also on the molecular level. In order to realize the Perfect Reactors concepts by 2050 research efforts should be based on simultaneous and multi-scale addressing of the four fundamental domains of Process Intensification: spatial, thermodynamic, functional and temporal.