Industrial Photoreactors
Industrial Photoreactors
Why Industrial Photochemistry?
A large number of chemical reactions are carried out at temperatures between 100 and 250 °C in order to achieve a fast reaction and thus high productivity. At these temperatures, however, decomposition processes already start with corresponding losses in yield and undesired by-products.
With the help of catalysts, reactions can be activated even at lower temperatures, but are expensive to procure and to handle. Photochemistry offers an elegant alternative and allows new syntheses. Not heat or catalysts, but the energy of light activates the reaction, which can then take place at temperatures well below 100 °C and often even at room temperature. By this process, decomposition or by-products are reduced to a minimum or do not arise at all. Light instead of heat, this principle can be applied to a variety of syntheses such as chlorinations, sulfonations, sulfoxidations or nitrosylations.
The Turnkey EKATO-Photoreactor
Stirred photoreactor
The stirred photoreactor from EKATO allows syntheses by the energy of light and an advanced stirring technique which ensures high circulation rates in the reactor. The concept of this new stirred reactor is ideal for multiphase reactions involving liquids, gases and solids. It combines high productivity and flexibility with the safe operation of immersed light sources. Reactors up to 50 m³ are realized with this proven design and a safe scale-up by our specialists enables further reactor sizes.
The UV Light Sources - Safe Operation
The light sources are ATEX-certified mercury vapor or LED lamp modules, which we obtain via our cooperation partner, Peschl Ultraviolet GmbH (the global expert in the field of industrial UV light sources). The UV light modules are housed in protection tubes made of quartz glass, which are inserted through nozzles in the top of the vessel, where they are also connected to the power supply and the cooling system. These UV immersion lamps have a power of 5 - 60 kW. Therefore, a cooling within the glass tube is required, otherwise the sensitive molecules can be damaged by high surface temperatures. Industrial reactors are equipped with 4 to 20 of such glass tubes. The glass tubes with their light sources are exposed to hydraulic and thermal loads in the stirred vessel. A particular challenge in this case is secure mounting of the UV immersion lamps on the reactor. Special holders developed and patented by EKATO to ensure that in any operating condition impermissible stresses or vibrations will not occur in the component. Dangerous reactants are detected immediately even in the unlikely event of a glass breakage and do not reach the outside via the electrical connections or the cooling. In EKATO’s technical center the reliability of these designs was investigated by tests and it has been comprehensively confirmed in numerous operational assignments.
