1. Chemical Engineering Process Miniaturisation for Chemical Production and Material Manufacture
- Author
-
Yeung King Lun and Chen Xinqing
- Subjects
Materials science ,General Engineering ,Mesoporous silica ,equipment and supplies ,Catalysis ,Benzaldehyde ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,chemistry ,Chemical engineering ,Yield (chemistry) ,Knoevenagel condensation ,Microreactor ,Mesoporous material ,human activities ,Iron oxide nanoparticles - Abstract
Chemical process miniaturisation was used to develop new microreactor systems for the synthesis and preparation of catalysts and for the production of fine chemicals. Mesoporous silica MCM-41 was successfully prepared by flow synthesis in a microreactor at shorter reaction times (ie minutes versus day) at high yield (ie 98 %) to give particles of more uniform size and shape compared to samples prepared by conventional batch synthesis. Magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles were incorporated and aminopropyls were grafted on MCM-41 to obtain a magnetic mesoporous catalyst for the Knoevenagel condensation reaction of benzaldehyde and ethyl cyanoacetate. Iron oxide nanoparticles in NH2-magMCM-41 have promotion effect on the aminopropyls catalytic sites resulting in a twofold increase in the catalytic activity of the magnetic mesoporous catalyst compared to NH2-MCM-41. The magnetic catalyst was used in a new magnetized capillary microreactor. The catalysts were captured and held in place by the magnets, and used to...
- Published
- 2012