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Micromachines
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Micro-Reaction Engineering
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Micro-Reaction Engineering

A special issue of Micromachines (ISSN 2072-666X). This special issue belongs to the section "C：Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 July 2021) | Viewed by 13485

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Giovanna Tomaiuolo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemical, Materials and Industrial Production Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy
Interests: microfluidics; complex fluids; rheology
Dr. Antonio Perazzo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Advanced BioDevices & Novaflux, Princeton, NJ, USA
Interests: soft matter; rheology; chemical and biomedical engineering

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce a Special Issue of Micromachines dedicated to “Micro-Reaction Engineering”.

Flow chemistry at the micro-scale is the key to the intensification of chemical and biomolecular engineering processes. This technology offers precise control of flow, mixing, heat, and mass transfer, thus, allowing significant selectivity of the reactions and more efficient handling of safety issues compared to traditional batch operations. The ease of automation and scale-up by operating several devices in parallel makes the technology flexible to different engineering needs.

Indeed, microreactor technology is gaining ground in a broad range of applications, including biotechnology, chemical synthesis, green chemistry, and synthesis of functionalized materials. However, issues are sometimes encountered when running micro-reactors, such as clogging and the necessity of harnessing instabilities. In all of these fields, Artificial Intelligence has started to pop up to aid the development of both processes and products. These challenges represent a great opportunity to develop innovations and to bring micro-reaction engineering into a new era.

The Special Issue will encompass original articles and reviews broadly dedicated to flow chemistry at the micro-scale therein highlighting issues, current state-of-the-art technology and opportunities for development. The contributions will include experimental and theoretical research devoted but not limited to the following: chemical synthesis, artificial intelligence, clogging, multiphase flows, crystallization, spectroscopy, imaging, and automated flow chemistry.

Dr. Giovanna Tomaiuolo
Dr. Antonio Perazzo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Micromachines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Microfluidics
  • chemical synthesis
  • artificial intelligence
  • fouling
  • clogging
  • multiphase flows
  • crystallization
  • spectroscopy
  • imaging and automated flow chemistry

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 3701 KiB  
Article
Visualization of Local Concentration and Viscosity Distribution during Glycerol-Water Mixing in a Y-Shape Minichannel: A Proof-of-Concept-Study
by Isabel Medina, Julian Deuerling, Pooja Kumari, Stephan Scholl and Matthias Rädle
Micromachines 2021, 12(8), 940; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12080940 - 10 Aug 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2050
Abstract
The work presents an efficient and non-invasive method to visualize the local concentration and viscosity distribution of two miscible and non-reacting substances with a significant viscosity difference in a microchannel with a Y-shape cell. The proof-of-concept setup consists of a near-infrared (NIR) camera [...] Read more.
The work presents an efficient and non-invasive method to visualize the local concentration and viscosity distribution of two miscible and non-reacting substances with a significant viscosity difference in a microchannel with a Y-shape cell. The proof-of-concept setup consists of a near-infrared (NIR) camera and cost-effective dome lighting with NIR light-emitting diodes (LED) covering the wavelength range of 1050 to 1650 nm. Absorption differences of glycerol and water and their mixtures with a mass fraction of glycerol from 0 to 0.95 gGlycgtotal−1 were analyzed in the NIR spectral area. The resulting measurement images were converted in a concentration profile by using absorbance calculated with Lambert–Beer law. A linear behavior between the concentration and the absorption coefficient is demonstrated. The result of local concentration in mass fraction was used to determine the local viscosity and illustrated as distribution images. By variating the fluid parameters, the influences of the highly different original viscosities in the mixing procedure were investigated and visualized. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Micro-Reaction Engineering)
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20 pages, 16028 KiB  
Article
An Investigation of Flow Patterns and Mixing Characteristics in a Cross-Shaped Micromixer within the Laminar Regime
by Shuai Yuan, Bingyan Jiang, Tao Peng, Qiang Li and Mingyong Zhou
Micromachines 2021, 12(4), 462; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12040462 - 20 Apr 2021
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2754
Abstract
A fast mixing is critical for subsequent practical development of microfluidic devices, which are often used for assays in the detection of reagents and samples. The present work sets up computational fluid dynamics simulations to explore the flow characteristic and mixing mechanism of [...] Read more.
A fast mixing is critical for subsequent practical development of microfluidic devices, which are often used for assays in the detection of reagents and samples. The present work sets up computational fluid dynamics simulations to explore the flow characteristic and mixing mechanism of fluids in cross-shaped mixers within the laminar regime. First, the effects of increasing an operating parameter on local mixing quality along the microchannels are investigated. It is found that sufficient diffusion cannot occur even though the concentration gradient is large at a high Reynolds number. Meanwhile, a method for calculating local mixing efficiency is also characterized. The mixing efficiency varies exponentially with the flow distance. Second, in order to optimize the cross-shaped mixer, the effects of design parameters, namely aspect ratio, mixing angle and blockage, on mixing quality are captured and the visualization of velocity and concentration distribution are demonstrated. The results show that the aspect ratio and the blockage play an important role in accelerating the mixing process. They can improve the mixing efficiency by increasing the mass transfer area and enhancing the chaotic advection, respectively. In contrast, the inflow angle that affects dispersion length is not an effective parameter. Besides, the surface roughness, which makes the disturbance of fluid flow by roughness more obvious, is considered. Three types of rough elements bring benefits for enhancing mixing quality due to the convection induced by the lateral velocity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Micro-Reaction Engineering)
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14 pages, 7098 KiB  
Article
A Study on the Effect of Flow Unsteadiness on the Yield of a Chemical Reaction in a T Micro-Reactor
by Alessandro Mariotti, Matteo Antognoli, Chiara Galletti, Roberto Mauri, Maria Vittoria Salvetti and Elisabetta Brunazzi
Micromachines 2021, 12(3), 242; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12030242 - 27 Feb 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1943
Abstract
Despite the very simple geometry and the laminar flow, T-shaped microreactors have been found to be characterized by different and complex steady and unsteady flow regimes, depending on the Reynolds number. In particular, flow unsteadiness modifies strongly the mixing process; however, little is [...] Read more.
Despite the very simple geometry and the laminar flow, T-shaped microreactors have been found to be characterized by different and complex steady and unsteady flow regimes, depending on the Reynolds number. In particular, flow unsteadiness modifies strongly the mixing process; however, little is known on how this change may affect the yield of a chemical reaction. In the present work, experiments and 3-dimensional numerical simulations are carried out jointly to analyze mixing and reaction in a T-shaped microreactor with the ultimate goal to investigate how flow unsteadiness affects the reaction yield. The onset of the unsteady asymmetric regime enhances the reaction yield by more than 30%; however, a strong decrease of the yield back to values typical of the vortex regime is observed when the flow undergoes a transition to the unsteady symmetric regime. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Micro-Reaction Engineering)
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13 pages, 4049 KiB  
Article
CFD Simulations of Microreactors for the Hydrolysis of Cellobiose to Glucose by β-Glucosidase Enzyme
by Virginia Venezia, Valeria Califano, Giulio Pota, Aniello Costantini, Gianluca Landi and Almerinda Di Benedetto
Micromachines 2020, 11(9), 790; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi11090790 - 21 Aug 2020
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1948
Abstract
The enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass-derived compounds represents a valid strategy to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels, with geopolitical and environmental benefits. In particular, β-glucosidase (BG) enzyme is the bottleneck in the degradation of cellulose because it catalyzes the hydrolysis of cellobiose, [...] Read more.
The enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass-derived compounds represents a valid strategy to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels, with geopolitical and environmental benefits. In particular, β-glucosidase (BG) enzyme is the bottleneck in the degradation of cellulose because it catalyzes the hydrolysis of cellobiose, a known inhibitor of the other cellulolytic enzymes. However, free enzymes are unstable, expensive and difficult to recover. For this reason, the immobilization of BG on a suitable support is crucial to improve its catalytic performance. In this paper, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed to test the hydrolysis reaction in a monolith channel coated by BG adsorbed on a wrinkled silica nanoparticles (WSNs) washcoat. We initially defined the physical properties of the mixture, the parameters related to kinetics and mass transfers and the initial and boundary conditions thanks to our preliminary experimental tests. Numerical simulation results have shown great similarity with the experimental ones, demonstrating the validity of this model. Following this, it was possible to explore in real time the behavior of the system, varying other specified parameters (i.e., the mixture inlet velocity or the enzymatic load on the reactor surface) without carrying out other experimental analyses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Micro-Reaction Engineering)
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Review

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36 pages, 9659 KiB  
Review
Membrane Fouling Phenomena in Microfluidic Systems: From Technical Challenges to Scientific Opportunities
by Andrea Iginio Cirillo, Giovanna Tomaiuolo and Stefano Guido
Micromachines 2021, 12(7), 820; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12070820 - 13 Jul 2021
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 4047
Abstract
The almost ubiquitous, though undesired, deposition and accumulation of suspended/dissolved matter on solid surfaces, known as fouling, represents a crucial issue strongly affecting the efficiency and sustainability of micro-scale reactors. Fouling becomes even more detrimental for all the applications that require the use [...] Read more.
The almost ubiquitous, though undesired, deposition and accumulation of suspended/dissolved matter on solid surfaces, known as fouling, represents a crucial issue strongly affecting the efficiency and sustainability of micro-scale reactors. Fouling becomes even more detrimental for all the applications that require the use of membrane separation units. As a matter of fact, membrane technology is a key route towards process intensification, having the potential to replace conventional separation procedures, with significant energy savings and reduced environmental impact, in a broad range of applications, from water purification to food and pharmaceutical industries. Despite all the research efforts so far, fouling still represents an unsolved problem. The complex interplay of physical and chemical mechanisms governing its evolution is indeed yet to be fully unraveled and the role played by foulants’ properties or operating conditions is an area of active research where microfluidics can play a fundamental role. The aim of this review is to explore fouling through microfluidic systems, assessing the fundamental interactions involved and how microfluidics enables the comprehension of the mechanisms characterizing the process. The main mathematical models describing the fouling stages will also be reviewed and their limitations discussed. Finally, the principal dynamic investigation techniques in which microfluidics represents a key tool will be discussed, analyzing their employment to study fouling. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Micro-Reaction Engineering)
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