High-Efficiency Continuous Microreactors for Controlled Synthesis of Nanosized Particles of Functional Materials (Review)
摘要
The current state and prospects of microreactor synthesis of functional materials in the liquid phase, i.e., in single- and two-phase flows, are analyzed. Microreactors allow for fine control over the size, composition, structure, and properties of synthesized particles in coprecipitation processes. In addition, high-quality homogenization of solutions at the molecular/ionic level is also important in the production of organometallic compounds, for example, in hydrolysis reactions. The results obtained by various teams provide grounds for expecting fairly high potential for controlling the processes of nucleation and particle growth in microreactors by controlling pH, reagent concentrations, the quality of micromixing, and the residence time in each zone of the reactor, i.e., the nucleation zone and growth zone. The advantages of microreactor synthesis are demonstrated: high quality micromixing in a volume of 0.2–0.5 mL, which ensures the production of nanoparticles without impurities (in terms of composition), a stoichiometric ratio of atoms in the product, and limitation of agglomerate growth due to a short residence time (on the order of several milliseconds). The transition to an industrial scale is due to the relatively high productivity of a single microreactor (up to 10 m3/day for suspension, up to 200–300 kg/day for solid phase). Intensive mixing in microreactors with a diameter of 2–4 mm and less, caused by Taylor vortices, has facilitated the use of two-phase microreactors for the synthesis of both organic and inorganic substances. For organic compounds, the production of which is associated with the formation of explosive products, the use of microreactors has another advantage: the diameter of the channels can be taken to be less than the critical value for a given group of substances. It should be noted that an industrial microreactor may employ several tens of thousands of parallel microchannels; i.e., the name here is due to the transverse size of the channels (about 2–4 mm or less) and the performance is comparable to that of standard types of chemical equipment.