Activated carbon is a common choice for removing impurities or capturing compounds from a product batch. However, the carbon may itself foul the product and be difficult to separate. The rotating bed reactor offers a clean way to deploy activated carbon that removes the need for time-consuming filtration and extends the lifetime of the solid phase.
The rotating bed reactor (RBR) is a combined tool for chemical transformations and liquid transfer operations, reducing or eliminating the need for external pumps. Filled with a catalyst or adsorbent, and rotated by a motor, the RBR brings the liquid to be processed in contact with the solid-phase at high flow rates. Due to the high flow rate generated, the RBR can not only treat the liquid in the reaction vessel, but also transfer it into the vessel for processing.
Automation of large-scale processes is often a requirement for economically viable chemical processes. The benefits of scale are best harvested at high throughputs and 24/7 operation. This leads to the demand for process automation, and the elimination of hands-on work.
Time lapse video showing how straightforward it is to use immobilized enzymes in a rotating bed reactor. A substrate giving a yellow coloured product was used to follow the reaction progress of an ester hydrolysis by an immobilized lipase. This substrate is commonly used to screen and characterize lipases.
Roger A. Sheldon and Pedro C. Pereira Chem. Soc. Rev., 2017, 46(10), pp. 2678-2691.
Hilde Larsson, Patrick Alexander Schjøtt Andersen, Emil Byström, Krist V. Gernaey, and Ulrich Krühne Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 2017, 56, 14, pp. 3853-3865.
Removing ions from liquids is common in industry and society. Ions are remediated in applications ranging from the production of pharmaceuticals to the treatment of communal waste streams. Likewise, the nuclear energy sector deals with the removal of ionic radioactive substances from water on a daily basis.
A fixed bed reactor (FBR), also known as a packed bed reactor or column, is a traditional technology for processes such as adsorption or heterogeneous catalysis. Achieving the required level of purification or conversion means running the liquid through the reactor at a sufficiently low flow rate, and the throughput of a fixed bed reactor is therefore often limited.
Mass transfer limited reactions can create problems for applications like the synthesis of chemical products or the manufacture of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Poor yields, high side-product formation or impractically long reactions are potential issues. Efficient reactor design can greatly improve the mass transfer and remove the limitation to a minimum.
Liquids with high viscosity create problems for heterogeneous applications in traditional reactors. Packed bed reactors (columns) suffer from huge back pressures, and stirred tank reactors (STR) exhibit reduced reaction rates due to poor mixing. Both issues lead to longer processing times and expensive operations.
Adsorption of methylene blue (3 g, 5 mg/L) onto Purolite® NRW1160 (4.2 L) placed in a SpinChem® S5 RBR operated at 147 rpm. The SpinChem® S5 RBR was placed within a 600 L IBC tank, using the ProRBR IBC add-on, where the tank was filled with water. The data was acquired using a UV-VIS spectrophotometer.
Decolorization, pesticide remediation, catalysis, and many other applications involve dealing with viscous liquid that needs to be modified in some way. The rotating bed reactor presents an efficient way to treat viscous liquids, without the challenges of conventional reactors.
A large scale decolourization experiment using the SpinChem® rotating bed reactor (RBR) S100, packed with 79 L of activated carbon. The vessel contained 7000 L of water with added methylene blue dye. In under 40 minutes, 95% of the initial concentration of methylene blue was removed from the water, which shows that the RBR S100 can achieve fast reaction times in large scale processes.
When working with an emulsion (and particularly with a heterogeneous catalyst) the mass transfer between the phases is critical. Insufficient mixing leads to lower interfacial area per volume, and in turn to poor mass transfer across the phases.
The SpinChem rotating bed reactor (RBR) can eliminate poor mass transfer in heterogeneous reactions during chemical syntheses and biotransformations, preserve catalyst activity, and facilitate recycling of solid phases. This brochure presents our technology and its applications.
Roger A. Sheldon, Alessandra Basso, and Dean Brady Chem. Soc. Rev., 2021, 50(10), pp. 5850-5862.
Pesticide residue can ruin a batch of a botanical extract, creating large problems for producers. Curated adsorbents, specifically chosen for your situation, can be used to remediate the pesticides. With a rotating bed reactor, you are equipped to respond to contaminants showing up on your test results.
Roger A. Sheldon and John M. Woodley Chem. Rev., 2018, 118(2), pp. 801-838.
This case study presents a lipase-mediated stereoselective acetylation of a racemic amine in a rotating bed reactor.
When using of solid-phase catalysts or adsorbents in reactors, the physical degradation of the materials is a common problem. The traditional stirred tank reactor inflicts mechanical damage to the particles, which causes attrition, fines that are difficult to separate, and loss of the functionality of the solid-phase.
Screening immobilized enzymes to find the best match with the substrate and reaction conditions can be a time-consuming process. The introduction of the solids in a stirred tank reactor leads to damage to the immobilized biocatalysts and makes filtration necessary.
Research and development quickly takes new directions, and the requirements on a laboratory may vary with every new project. Limiting yourself to equipment with a narrow scope of conditions and applications may become expensive, since new equipment must be acquired for anything out of scope. With budgets quickly consumed by other projects, the need for new equipment may mean significant delays and a reduced capability to take on emerging opportunities.
The synthesis of products, such as active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), often involves multiple steps using heterogeneous catalysts or adsorbents. Thus, the simultaneous use of multiple solid phases either during synthesis or downstream processing is frequently highly advantageous.
Synthesis typically involves multiple reaction steps and the isolation of intermediate products. Any incomplete conversion at the end of each step will compound to an overall lower yield. To make things worse, the work-up of each intermediate can be very time-consuming. This has made one-pot cascade synthesis (the simultaneous execution of multiple steps in a single reactor) a desirable target for chemists. This approach aims to minimize intermediate work-up, reduce the risk of material loss, and enhance overall process efficiency.
Josefina Nyström, Ulla-Britt Östman, Torgny Mossing, Leif Hed, and Paul Geladi Food Anal. Methods, 2020, 13, pp. 933-941.
Heterogeneous reactions involving viscous solutions put high demands on equipment and materials. Columns face high pressure drops and require powerful pumps and durable solid phase particles. Stirred tank reactors do not face the same problem, but the high liquid viscosity and low particle density will have a negative impact on reaction kinetics and require tedious filtration to separate the solids afterwards.
Biocatalysis offers many benefits in the production of chemicals and active pharmaceutical ingredients. One major challenge has been the deployment of immobilized enzymes in an efficient way on large scale. The rotating bed reactor offers a convenient way to scale a biocatalytic process.
Sometimes you don’t want to pack the entire rotating bed reactor full with your solid-phase material. Fully loading might simply be wasteful, or you may want to experiment with your reaction conditions. But how does the amount of solids in the rotating bed reactor influence the reaction performance? Can you use only 10% of the full capacity?
Scavenging of soluble undesirable compounds and substances onto solid phase is used in a wide range of applications. In this example, a rotating bed reactor (RBR) is used to capture low concentrations of a phenol onto readily available Strong Anion Exchange (SAX) resin as a scavenger.
Robert Kourist and Javier González‐Sabín In: Biocatalysis for Practitioners: Techniques, Reactions and Applications
Roger A. Sheldon and Dean Brady ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng., 2021, 9(24), pp. 8032–8052.
Jesús Albarrán‐Velo, Sergio González‐Granda, Marina López‐Agudo, and Vicente Gotor‐Fernández In: Biocatalysis for Practitioners: Techniques, Reactions and Applications
Maria Herrero Manzano, Kari Eränen, Kari, Adriana Freites Aguilera, Johan Wärnå, Sebastian Franz, Markus Peurla, Juan García Serna, Dmitry Murzin, and Tapio Salmi Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 2021, 60(18), pp. 6483-6500.
José Coloma, Yann Guiavarc'h, Peter-Leon Hagedoorn, and Ulf Hanefeld Catal. Sci. Technol., 2020, 10(11), pp. 3613-3621.
Guillem Vernet, Markus Hobisch, and Selin Kara Curr. Opin. Green Sustainable Chem., 2022, 38, 100692.
Daniel Eggerichs, Kathrin Zilske, and Dirk Tischler Mol. Catal., 2023, 546, 113277.
Kim Shortall, Katarzyna Szymańska, Cristina Carucci, Tewfik Soulimane, and Edmond Magner In: Biocatalyst Immobilization, Foundations and Applications, 2022
Environmentally benign and safe synthesis is enabled by highly active biocatalysts. To bolster economic and ecological aspects, catalyst reuse is essential and achieved by heterogenization of otherwise soluble enzymes onto solid supports. Here, this is demonstrated on novel renewable and non-polluting cellulose beads.
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