Chemie Ingenieur Technik, Vol.76, No.5, 567-567, 2004
Mixers with microstructured foils for chemical production purposes
Since about 10 years the Institut fur Mikrotechnik Mainz GmbH (IMM) is engaged with the application of microstructures for chemical micro process engineering. Their advantages-more efficient heat exchange and mass transport-lead to, among other things, an increase in yield and selectivity even while saving resources. The development of microstructured mixers thereby played a key role for carrying out advanced syntheses of fine chemicals as well as for the generation of dispersions, creams, foams, and emulsions. So far, microstructured mixers were mainly limited for laboratory-scale or at best pilot plant-scale-typical maximum flow rates were from 2-100 L/h for watery fluid systems. With the introduction of the StarLaminators StarLam300 and StarLam3000 this barrier could be lifted far beyond 300 L/h up to the m(3)/h domain. Both apparatus yield at high flow rates a mixing efficiency which reaches the high performance of today's low-capacity (L/h) micro mixers. Therefore, continuity from the "real" micro mixers over the herein described high-throughput tools to conventionally manufactured static mixers with even higher flow rates is given.