The potential of heat-exchange reactors with mm-scale channels to provide process intensification for homogeneously catalysed gas–liquid reactions was explored. The solvent-free hydroformylation of cyclododecatriene using a homogeneous catalyst was carried out in a heat-exchange (HEx) reactor with mm-scale thin channels, and in a stirred batch autoclave for comparative purposes. The reaction was carried out using generally a concentration of 0.3

This study addresses the intensification of heterogeneously catalysed multiphase reactions using thin flow channel approaches, where the gas liquid and slurry catalyst are all circulated through the reactor, in contrast to the wall coated and packed bed approaches generally used. Resorcinol hydrogenation is used as an example reaction. Catalyst screening and process parameter investigations were carried out using a representative single capillary.

The oxidation of alcohols to aldehydes with O2 in place of stoichiometric oxygen donors is a crucial process for the synthesis of fine chemicals. However, the catalysts that have been identified so far are relatively inactive with primary alkyl alcohols. We showed that Au/Pd-TiO2 catalysts give very high turnover frequencies (up to 270,000 turnovers per hour) for the oxidation of alcohols, including primary alkyl alcohols. The addition of Au to Pd

Magnesium oxide obtained using a novel but simple procedure was systematically investigated as a heterogeneous base catalyst for reactions taking place in liquid phase, specifically the Michael addition and Knoevenagel condensation. The activity of MgO was studied in detail, together with the effects of solvent and of substrate on the catalytic activity for each type of reaction. A key finding is that the formation of enols affected the activity

Oxidation is an important method for the synthesis of chemical intermediates in the manufacture of high-tonnage commodities, high-value fine chemicals, agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals: but oxidations are often inefficient1. The introduction of catalytic systems using oxygen from air is preferred for 'green' processing2. Gold catalysis is now showing potential in selective redox processes3-6, particularly for alcohol oxidation7-10 and the direct

Despite many innovations in the intensification of catalytic multiphase reactors for the small and medium scale manufacture of chemicals, there have as yet been relatively few commercial successes. One reason for this might be that many of these developments inherently incorporate a fixed catalyst, which may not suit an industry that is based on principles of batch manufacture and multi-product plant. This study evaluates an intensified reactor that

The off-line coupling of normal-phase HPLC and capillary GC was used to determine the total aromatics content of middle distillates. Samples doped with internal standards were injected into the liquid chromatograph and the two collected fractions, saturates and aromatics, were further analysed by capillary GC. Good repeatability of the analysis was obtained for this determination on both gas oils and kerosenes and there was good agreement with other

Al2O3–ZrO2 mixed supports have been synthesised using a colloidal solution of ZrO(OH)2 or a Zr(IV) propoxide solution in organic medium. Zirconia content in these samples was about 10% (36% of the theoretic monolayer). The hydrothermal stability (alumina→boehmite transformation at 230 °C, about 10 bar pressure, in the presence of water vapour) of these supports was then investigated by XRD. The presence of the zirconia over the alumina decrease