Intermediate Gas Feed in Bi- or Triphasic Gas-Liquid(-Liquid) Segmented Slug Flow Capillary Reactors

Segmented slug flow systems in capillaries have already shown good potential for process intensification, due to their symmetry in the characteristic flow pattern. However, several challenges remain in this technology. For instance, in gas-consuming reactions, like A(liq) + B-gas -> C-liq, the gas droplets shrink and may even disappear, limiting the conversions and throughputs of capillary reactor systems. To overcome such shortcomings, an intermediate gas feed was developed. In order to maintain the well-defined slug flow characteristics, it is necessary to introduce the gas rapidly and precisely, in small aliquots of <10 mu L. This allows us to preserve the well-defined alternating triphasic slug flow. A miniaturized electrolysis cell, together with a flow-observing system, was thus devised and implemented successfully as an intermediate gas feed. Feeding a new gas droplet into an existing liquid-liquid segmented flow had a success rate of up to 99%, whereas refilling an existing gas droplet is often limited by a lack of coalescence. Here, only at low volumetric flows, 70% of the gas bubbles were refilled by coalescence.