A major focus of IMMxs current work in the area of Chemical Micro Process Engineering is the transfer of (micro)structured components and microreactor based processes from lab to pilot and production scale. This topic is especially addressed in the two German public funded BMBF projects µ.Pro.Chem (Förderkennzeichen 16SV1991) and POKOMI (Förderkennzeichen 16SV1981) and the integrated EU-project IMPULSE. Within these projects different application areas are considered:

·              Gas/liquid process (ozonolysis) in falling film microreators with an aimed pilot scale of 10 l/h liquid throughput and a production scale of about 100 – 1000 l/h (project µ.Pro.Chem).[1]

·              Liquid/liquid process (Suzuki-polycondensation for OLED material synthesis) in microsturctured reactors or reactors with microporous metallic foams for production throughputs in the range of a few to several liters per hour (project POKOMI).[2]

·              Surfactant dispersion in the context of liquid fabric enhancer production with a lab scale of about 10 l/h and an aimed pilot scale of about 1000 l/h (project IMPULSE Task 3.3).[3]

·              High exothermic single phase ionic liquid synthesis with an aimed pilot scale of about 8 l/h (project IMPULSE Task 2.1).[4]

The approaches to reach larger throughputs in these application examples will be outlined supplemented by additional processes from IMM working areas but also by examples from literature (e.g. [5]). Furthermore, it is aimed to derive there from generic learning on the topic of scale-out approaches in Micro Chemical Process Engineering.

[1]        Vankayala, B.K., Loeb, P., Hessel, V., Menges, G., Hofmann, C., Metzke, D., Krtschil, U., Kost, H.-J., International Journal of Chemical Reactor Engineering, accepted for publication.

[2]        Hessel, V., Rothstock, S., Agar, D.W., Jadhavrao, P., Löb, P., Werner, B., in: Conference proceedings, 2007, AIChE spring national meeting: April 22-27, 2007, Houston. – New York: AIChE, 2007, 74d.

[3]        Löb, P., Hessel, V., Hensel, A., Simoncelli, A., Chimica Oggi (Chemistry Today) 25, 3 (2007) 26-29.

[4]        Löb, P., Hessel, V., Krtschil, U., Löwe, H., Chimica Oggi (Chemistry Today) 24, 2 (2006) 46-50.

[5]        Iwasaki, T., Kawano, N., Yoshida, J., Org. Process Res. Dev. 10 (2006) 1126-1131.