Gas phase mass transfer in falling film microreactors (FFMRs) with the absorption of CO2 into aqueous solutions of NaOH was investigated.The overall gas-phase mass transfer coefficient increases with NaOH concentration,but decreases as the concentration of CO2 increases.There exists an entrance effect,hindering the mass transfer,which is caused by the dead volume for gas-phase flow in the gas chamber in FFMRs.The entrance effect has a larger impact in a shorter FFMR owing to the relatively large dead volume with respect to that of gas chamber.A decrease in the depth of gas chamber facilitates the mass transfer process.Therefore,the gas-phase entrance or geometry of the gas chamber should be designed appropriately to reduce the entrance effect and improve the mass transfer.
In this paper, the nitration characteristic of alcohols with mixed acid for the synthesis of energetic mate-rials in a stainless steel microreactor was investigated experimentally. The nitration of iso-octanol with HNO3-H2SO4 mixed acid was chosen as a typical model reaction which involved fast and strong exothermic liquid-liquid heterogeneous reaction process. The influences of mixed acid composition, flow rate, organic/aqueous flow ratio and reaction temperature have been investigated. The results indicated that the reaction could be con-ducted safely and stably in the microreactor at 25-40°C, which are enhanced compared to 15°C or below for safe operating conditions in the conventional reactors. Moreover, the 98.2% conversion of iso-octanol could be obtained and no by-products were detected in all cases.
