Nitration of toluene in a microreactor

Raghunath Halder, Woo Lee, Adeniyi Lawal, Reddy Damavarapu

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

The nitration of toluene in a microreactor immersed in a constant temperature bath using concentrated nitric acid as the nitrating agent was studied. In the multiphase liquid-liquid nitration of toluene with 90 wt % nitric acid, the mass transfer rate affected the rate of reaction in a conventional reactor. In a microreactor, both mass transfer and intrinsic kinetics affected the reaction rate at lower temperature levels and the reaction rate was more influenced by the mass transfer at higher temperature levels. For this reaction, much higher reaction rate, in orders of magnitude, could be obtained in a microreactor than in the conventional reactors, while simultaneously preventing any temperature runaway due to its superior heat and mass transfer coefficients. However, with nitric acid alone as the nitrating agent, the yield of the nitrotoluenes was low due to the adverse dependency of water formed in the reaction on the nitronium ion concentration. This is an abstract of paper presented at the AIChE Spring National Meeting (Orlando, FL 4/24-26/2006).

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2006 AIChE Spring Annual Meeting
StatePublished - 2006
Event2006 AIChE Spring National Meeting - Orlando, FL, United States
Duration: 23 Apr 200627 Apr 2006

Publication series

Name2006 AIChE Spring Annual Meeting

Conference

Conference2006 AIChE Spring National Meeting
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityOrlando, FL
Period23/04/0627/04/06

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