Microfluidics to Liquid Phase Non-Catalytic Naphthenic-Aromatic Hydrocarbon Oxidation

• Author / Creator

  Wu, Yucheng

• Liquid phase oxidation is industrially important to produce valuable petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals. However, due to the complex nature of free-radical reactions in a non-catalytic oxidation process, it is a challenge to achieve desired selectivity at a high conversion. This study investigates liquid phase non-catalytic oxidation of naphthenic-aromatic hydrocarbon in microfluidic reactors. The interest of the study is to exploit the potential of using microfluidic reactors to manipulate conversion rate and product selectivity. The research consists of two studies. The first study shows using microfluidics reactor, one can achieve order of magnitude of increase from 1:1 to 10:1 in product selectivity compared to that in batch reactor due to increasing gas-liquid interfacial area. Regardless of the reactor type, semi-batch or microfluidics reactor, gas-liquid interfacial area is the most important parameter influencing the oxidation conversion and selectivity. The second study investigated the effect of reactor configuration (size and shape) on liquid phase oxidation of naphthenic aromatic hydrocarbon in two microfluidic reactors with different dimension and flow path geometry. It was observed that reactor dimensions and volume changed the reactor hydrodynamics and influenced the oxygen availability in different ways and affected the conversion and product selectivity differently. The reactor with smaller size had higher oxidation conversion and suppressed the addition product selectivity, whereas large reactor had moderate conversion and enhanced ketone-to-alcohol product selectivity. The contributor to get higher oxygen availability could either be smaller reactor dimension and volume or increased length of the liquid film surrounding the gas bubble. The findings from the thesis could be used to improve design and operation of liquid phase non-catalytic hydrocarbon oxidation in microfluidic reactors to produce desired petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Microfluidics
  • Reaction Engineering
  • Liquid Phase Oxidation

• Graduation date

  Fall 2020

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-st2p-x718

• License

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