Modeling and experimental investigation of the spatial heat transfer in a plate reactor with meandering millichannels

Millistructured plate reactors are compact, robust and flexible devices that combine high heat transfer rates with considerable flow rates. They are thus an ideal tool for process intensification in the chemical industry. In the present work, an innovative mathematical model for the ART plate reactor PR37 of the Ehrfeld Mikrotechnik GmbH is developed which covers the three-dimensional heat transfer between process and utility channel with low computational effort. Nusselt correlations have been established for the process and utility channel by fitting the model to a large number of experiments. Significant intensification of the heat transfer is reached due to formation of secondary flows in the meandering, periodically diverging/converging process channels for Reynolds numbers larger than 11. The heat transfer coefficients in the process channels exceed values of 5 kW m−2 K-1 despite relatively low Reynolds numbers and comparatively large hydraulic diameters of around 2 mm. This demonstrates the suitability of this reactor for highly exothermic reaction.

Subjects

Heat exchanger/reactor

Heat transfer

Millireactor

Modeling

Nusselt correlation

Process intensification

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Modeling and experimental investigation of the spatial heat transfer in a plate reactor with meandering millichannels