Shusaku Asano

Fast mixing is an essential feature of a microreactor. This study reveals the critical role of microscopic fluid incorporation on fast chemical reactions in a microreactor. The vortices in a microreactor produce tiny fluid segments, and the incorporation of these segments into the surrounding fluid triggers chemical reactions. The selectivity of chemical reactions highly depends on the type of the fluid segment incorporated into the fluid. Microreactor operations that consider incorporative mixi

T- and V-shaped (or arrow-shaped) micromixers enable the control of rapid chemical reactions by permitting accelerated mixing. Their mixing performance has been extensively investigated at moderate flow rates, which correspond to Reynolds numbers of the order of several hundreds. However, this operating range does not align with the recent applications of microreactors in organic synthesis. Therefore, this study examined mixing times in T- and V-shaped micromixers with 250-µm-wide channels at hi

Microreactors have been utilized for controlling fast chemical reactions. However, the scale-up strategy for fast reactions is not established enough due to the difficulty in quantifying the effect of the reactor size on the mixing performance, heat removal, and observable reaction rate. We present a chart for analyzing the effect of the mixing rate on the observable kinetic constant and a chart for estimating the temperature increase in the reactor. By using these charts, the validity of the ra

The relationship between mixing history and reaction performance in microreactors using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations is identified. In the idealized, simplified mixing model, mixing proceeds linearly and only the mixing time determined the reaction performance. However, in the case of realistic models where mixing proceeds unequally, the partial rapid progression of mixing, more than the mixing time, significantly impacts the reaction. The use of the fluid segment size distribu

Delignification is essential in effective utilization of carbohydrates of lignocellulosic biomass. Characteristics of the delignification are important for the yield and property of the resulting carbohydrates. Oxidation with O₂ of biomass in alkaline water can potentially produce high-purity cellulose at high yield. The present authors chose a Japanese cedar and investigated its oxidative delignification at 90 °C. The delignification selectivity was determined mainly by the chemical

We extensively examined the performance of microjet mixers.

The synthesis of alloyed nanoparticles has been studied extensively; however, the formation mechanisms involved remain unclear. Here, we reveal the detailed formation mechanism of alloyed nanoparticles in a Pd-Ru system, using a semibatch polyol method in which the simultaneous rapid reduction of both precursors was assumed to be the critical mechanism. We employed a microflow reactor to realize rapid heating and cooling. A significant difference in the reaction rate between the two precursors w

This study demonstrates the possibility of "contactless" mass transfer between two aqueous slugs (droplets) separated by an oil slug in Taylor flow inside milli-channels. Separation of the alternating aqueous slugs at the outlet was performed by switching a couple of solenoid valves at branched outlets according to signals obtained by an optical sensor at the branch. Transfer of bromothymol blue (BTB) from acidic to basic aqueous slugs was performed for demonstration. In some cases, aqueous slug

An automated microflow measurement system for the kinetic study of racemization of dynamic chiral molecules was developed. This system facilitated the analysis of fast racemization within several seconds at elevated temperatures owing to its rapid heating ability, high performance for controlling short residence times, and ease of connection to HPLC systems for direct measurement of the enantiomeric purity. A more precise analysis was realized by combination of microflow and common batch measure

Kinetic analysis of CO2 gasification by thermogravimetry was examined employing chars from a Victorian lignite. The gasification of char from the rigorously acid-washed lignite was extremely slow. More than 600 min was required for the complete gasification as a result of a near absence of inherent alkali and alkaline earth metallic (AAEM) species. It was nonetheless necessary to strictly choose the following conditions for eliminating the mass transfer effect: an initial mass of char of <1.3 mg

An enzyme membrane reactor is an attractive tool for producing oligosaccharides from biomass-based polysaccharides. However, kinetic modeling and reactor design based on the rate equations have rarely been reported for enzyme membrane reactors because of the difficulty in tracing the depolymerization process. In this study, a simplified reaction model based on Michaelis–Menten-type kinetics has been built to simulate the enzyme membrane reactor. Ramping various species into reactant, target, and

We have studied the unique reaction acceleration phenomenon in the mixture and discussed the limitations of the Langmuir–Hinshelwood model for a solid-catalysed reaction.