The energy efficient production of chemical products and decentralized production can be faced due to new options of process engineering. In conventional reactors, heterogeneous catalyzed gas-liquid reactions are often mass transport limited in the liquid phase. The generation of high volume specific surface area in micro structured reactors can result in higher reaction rates.

An example for gas-liquid systems is the hydrogenation of nitrobenzene. Different designs of the micro structured reactor and methods to integrate the catalyst are discussed within the project.

Picture: Micro structured reactor with exchangeable foils for the determination of mass transport / reaction rates in multi-phase systems; In detail: micro structured foil. The catalyst is placed between the pillars. The gaseous reactant is added to the liquid reactant in stages.