Principal Investigator Klavs Jensen
Co-investigator Kazumi Wada
Project Website http://web.mit.edu/jensenlab/MCSPublic/
The MIT-MicroChemical Systems Technology Center is a multidisciplinary Center focused on design and fabrication of new integrated microchemical systems for chemical discovery, synthesis, and development.
Microfabrication techniques and scale-up by replication have fueled spectacular advances in the electronics industry, and they rapidly revolutionizing biological research and drug discovery. Microfabrication offers a similar potential for faster, cheaper, better chemical product research and development. Microchemical systems combined with instrumentation in small bench top units clearly require less fume hood space, utilities, produce less waste, and offer safety advantages. Moreover, they could greatly enhance research and development productivity through high-throughput screening of catalysts and process chemistries, as well as efficient data integration.
Microreaction technology has several potential advantages for chemical production. The high heat and mass transfer rates possible in microfluidic systems allow reactions to be performed under more aggressive conditions with higher yields than can be achieved with conventional reactors. More importantly, new reaction pathways deemed too difficult in conventional macroscopic equipment can be pursued. The inherent safety characteristics of the technology suggest that production scale systems of multiple microreactors should enable distributed point-of-use synthesis of chemicals with storage and shipping limitations, such as highly reactive and toxic intermediates. Scale-up to production levels by replication of microreactor units used in the laboratory could eliminate costly redesign and pilot plant experiments, thereby shortening the development time from laboratory to commercial production. The approach would be particularly advantageous for the fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries, where production amounts are often small. The strategy would also allow for scheduled, gradual investment in new chemical production facilities without committing to a large production facility from the outset, thus reducing risks and high capital costs.
Research Directions
In developing microreaction technology, it is essential to focus on systems where microfabrication can provide unique process advantages. Such advantages could be derived from increased mass and heat transfer, leading to improved yield and safety for an existing process. The real value of the miniaturization effort, however, would be in exploring new reaction pathways and finding economical and environmentally benign solutions to chemical manufacturing. In order for microreactors to move beyond the laboratory into chemical production, they must also be integrated with sensors and actuators, either on the same chip, or through hybrid integration schemes. The integration of chemical systems with sensors in µTAS is already rapidly expanding the field, and cross-fertilization with microreactors for chemical synthesis will ultimately result in integrated chemical processors. The packaging of multiple reactors presents significant challenges in fluid handling, local reactor monitoring, and control.
Research in the Center aims to address the above issues through innovations in microreactor technology and applications. The following partial list of focus areas have been compiled on the basis of input from member companies
Systems
Evaluation of the value of the microreaction technology to the chemical and pharmaceutical industry by testing many different chemical systems in microreactors, emphasizing those chemical systems that would be difficult or impossible to do at larger scales, i.e. less controlled conditions.
Operation of integrated system (for single and multistage synthesis) (microreaction device + liquid handling/pumps + reservoirs + analysis + computer + isolation devices + .)
Potential use of microreactors at extreme conditions - high pressure (50 atm), low temperature (-80°C), high temperature (~600°C), and for different solvents (acids, bases and organics).
Reaction engineering design strategies (including economic considerations) and tools for microchemical systems.
Microreactor fabrication, system integration and packaging
Versatile microreactor designs integrating fluid, electrical, and optical distribution systems that are applicable to a broad range of chemical systems.
Methods for designing and realizing microvalving/metering manifold systems allowing the implementation of massively parallel liquid phase chemical systems.
Microreactor packaging strategies allowing easy interchange of reaction units and integration with microfluidics and control systems.
Microfabrication methods with a broad range of materials (polymers, metals, and ceramics) compatible with chemical processes and establish criteria for materials selection.
Separations
Microscale separation techniques that are analogs or replacements of distillation, extraction, and chromatographic (including chiral resolution) techniques used in conventional laboratory synthesis.
Techniques for handling solids generated in synthesis reactions, controlling nucleation, and filtering solids.
Integrated chemical analysis and monitoring
Broadly applicable chemical spectroscopy systems that can be integrated with microchemical systems for parallel, high throughput screening.
Use of microfabricated sensors based on simple physical changes (e.g., viscosity, density, temperature, refractive index, and conductivity changes with time) as reaction monitors rather than complex spectroscopy systems.
Chemical applications
The chemical systems are selected to best explore the demonstration and research problems identified in the focus areas. Example chemical applications include fluorination of aromatics and reactions involving HF, asymmetric synthesis, reactions involving the preparation and use of organometallic compounds, photochemical reactions, amination, epoxidation, hydrogenation, and oxidation.