TY - GEN
T1 - Nitration of toluene in a microreactor
AU - Halder, Raghunath
AU - Lee, Woo
AU - Lawal, Adeniyi
AU - Damavarapu, Reddy
PY - 2006
Y1 - 2006
N2 - Highly exothermic reactions such as aromatic nitration can be carried out in a highly efficient manner in microreactors due to the high heat and mass transfer rates. In this study, nitration of toluene was conducted in a microreactor immersed in a constant temperature bath using concentrated nitric acid as the nitrating agent. The effects of residence time, reaction temperature, and acid strength etc. on the reactor performance were studied. The results indicate that in the microreactor the nitration reaction proceeds fast, even without sulfuric acid, probably by self-protonation of nitric acid. Also, no by-products were detected. The isomeric distribution of the product nitrotoluenes was found to be identical to that generally found in the mixed-acid nitration. The results were compared with the data obtained from a batch reactor, and the microreactor reaction rates were much higher than the batch reactor rates.
AB - Highly exothermic reactions such as aromatic nitration can be carried out in a highly efficient manner in microreactors due to the high heat and mass transfer rates. In this study, nitration of toluene was conducted in a microreactor immersed in a constant temperature bath using concentrated nitric acid as the nitrating agent. The effects of residence time, reaction temperature, and acid strength etc. on the reactor performance were studied. The results indicate that in the microreactor the nitration reaction proceeds fast, even without sulfuric acid, probably by self-protonation of nitric acid. Also, no by-products were detected. The isomeric distribution of the product nitrotoluenes was found to be identical to that generally found in the mixed-acid nitration. The results were compared with the data obtained from a batch reactor, and the microreactor reaction rates were much higher than the batch reactor rates.
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M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84911921336
T3 - Topical Conference on Applications of Micro-Reactor Engineering 2006, Held at the 2006 AIChE Spring National Meeting
SP - 34
EP - 42
BT - Topical Conference on Applications of Micro-Reactor Engineering 2006, Held at the 2006 AIChE Spring National Meeting
T2 - Topical Conference on Applications of Micro-Reactor Engineering 2006, Held at the 2006 AIChE Spring National Meeting
Y2 - 23 April 2006 through 27 April 2006
ER -