Chemistry in Microstructured Reactors

TLDR

Microstructured reactors are increasingly adopted in chemical processing, enabling efficient, isothermal control of highly exothermic reactions, yet their potential remains underexplored in organic chemistry. The review aims to address this gap by providing a comprehensive overview of chemistry in microstructured reactors. It organizes the overview by categorizing reactions into liquid‑phase, gas‑phase, and gas‑liquid processes.

Abstract

The application of microstructured reactors in the chemical process industry has gained significant importance in recent years. Companies that offer not only microstructured reactors, but also entire chemical process plants and services relating to them, are already in existence. In addition, many institutes and universities are active within this field, and process-engineering-oriented reviews and a specialized book are available. Microstructured systems can be applied with particular success in the investigation of highly exothermic and fast reactions. Often the presence of temperature-induced side reactions can be significantly reduced through isothermal operations. Although microstructured reaction techniques have been shown to optimize many synthetic procedures, they have not yet received the attention they deserve in organic chemistry. For this reason, this Review aims to address this by providing an overview of the chemistry in microstructured reactors, grouped into liquid-phase, gas-phase, and gas-liquid reactions.