Continuous-flow reactors + microfluidics: tube-flow vs batch advantages, mixing on chip, heat-transfer at small scale, lab-on-a-chip synthesis, droplet microfluidics, photo-flow, electroflow.
flow-and-microfluidic-chemistry
Plug-flow vs batch reactor
Levenspiel 1972 'Chemical Reaction Engineering': PFR (continuous, plug-flow τ = V/Q) vs CSTR (continuous, well-mixed) vs batch. Conversion…
Microreactor mixing + mass transfer
Hessel-Hardt 2009. Microchannels (10-1000 μm) provide ~100× faster heat + mass transfer. Mixing time ~ms. Enables hazardous chemistry…
Flow chemistry (Jamison / Ley)
Jamison-MIT / Ley-Cambridge 2000s-. Continuous-flow synthesis enables challenging chemistry (high-T / high-P / hazardous-intermediates).…
Droplet microfluidics (Weitz / Stone)
Weitz-Stone 2003-: monodisperse droplets at kHz rates in 2-phase microfluidic channels. Used for digital-PCR / single-cell-sequencing /…
Lab-on-a-chip integrated devices
Manz-Widmer 1990 μTAS. Integrated sample-prep + reaction + detection on cm-scale chip. Point-of-care diagnostics (Abbott i-STAT). Bridges…
Photo-flow chemistry
Combining photoredox-cat + flow: thin-channel ensures uniform-light-penetration + heat-removal. Booker-Milburn pioneered. Modern:…
Electrochemical flow
Pletcher-Walsh 1993; modern: Lin-Lei 2017+ Baran. Continuous-flow electrochem-cells enable scalable green-electrosynthesis. Bridges…
Scale-up: numbering-up vs sizing-up
Microreactors numbered-up (parallel) preserves favourable transport vs scaled-up traditional (loses heat/mass-transfer). Industrial…
On-demand pharmaceutical flow
Trout-Jensen-MIT 2016: refrigerator-sized end-to-end flow synthesis of 4 essential medicines. Bypasses traditional batch + storage.…
Cellulosic + biomass flow chemistry
Continuous-flow conversion of biomass (cellulose / lignin / glycerol) to bio-fuels + bio-chemicals. Faster + more-energy-efficient than…
AI-driven flow self-optimisation
Bourne 2017 SNOBFIT + Bayesian-optimisation in flow. Closed-loop self-driving labs (Aspuru-Guzik 2018). Reduces optimisation-time 10-100×.…
Microfluidic organ-on-chip (cross-listed)
Cross-listed L3 tissue-engineering Ingber-Wyss organ-on-chip. Microfluidic platform for drug-discovery + disease modeling. Lung / gut /…
Plug flow reactor (PFR)
Levenspiel 1962: dC/dV = -r/v_0 with no axial mixing; conversion X = 1 - exp(-tau k) for first-order reaction; basis of continuous-flow…
Residence time distribution (RTD)
Danckwerts 1953: E(t) = c(t) / integral c dt; characterizes non-ideal flow via tracer-injection; classify as PFR + CSTR + axial-dispersion…
Droplet microfluidics (water-in-oil)
Quake-Whitesides 2000s soft-lithography PDMS chips; nanoliter droplets in fluorinated oil at kHz rates; high-throughput screening +…
Stopped-flow (transient mixing)
Roughton-Chance 1936 stopped-flow apparatus: ms-mixing with subsequent absorbance/fluorescence kinetics; basis of fast-reaction enzyme +…
Microreactor numbering-up (vs scale-up)
Hessel-Lowe 2000s parallel-microchannel scale-out: rather than scaling-up, multiply identical microreactors; preserves heat/mass-transport…
Electrochemical flow cell
Compton-Coles 2010s rotating-cylinder + parallel-plate flow electrolysis; mass-transport limited current density vs Reynolds; selective C-H…