Zhao Fang, Cambié Dario, Janse Jeroen, Wieland Eric W, Kuijpers Koen P L, Hessel Volker, Debije Michael G, Noël Timothy
Micro Flow Chemistry and Process Technology, Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Eindhoven University of Technology, Den Dolech 2, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
Functional Organic Materials & Devices, Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Eindhoven University of Technology, Den Dolech 2, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
ACS Sustain Chem Eng. 2018 Jan 2;6(1):422-429. doi: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.7b02687. Epub 2017 Nov 7.
The use of solar energy to power chemical reactions is a long-standing dream of the chemical community. Recently, visible-light-mediated photoredox catalysis has been recognized as the ideal catalytic transformation to convert solar energy into chemical bonds. However, scaling photochemical transformations has been extremely challenging due to Bouguer-Lambert-Beer law. Recently, we have pioneered the development of luminescent solar concentrator photomicroreactors (LSC-PMs), which display an excellent energy efficiency. These devices harvest solar energy, convert the broad solar energy spectrum to a narrow-wavelength region, and subsequently waveguide the re-emitted photons to the reaction channels. Herein, we report on the scalability of such LSC-PMs via a numbering-up strategy. Paramount in our work was the use of molds that were fabricated via 3D printing. This allowed us to rapidly produce many different prototypes and to optimize experimentally key design aspects in a time-efficient fashion. Reactors up to 32 parallel channels have been fabricated that display an excellent flow distribution using a bifurcated flow distributor (standard deviations below 10%). This excellent flow distribution was crucial to scale up a model reaction efficiently, displaying yields comparable to those obtained in a single-channel device. We also found that interchannel spacing is an important and unique design parameter for numbered-up LSC-PMs, which influences greatly the photon flux experienced within the reaction channels.
利用太阳能为化学反应提供动力一直是化学界长期以来的梦想。最近，可见光介导的光氧化还原催化已被公认为是将太阳能转化为化学键的理想催化转化方式。然而，由于布格-朗伯-比尔定律，扩大光化学转化规模极具挑战性。最近，我们率先开发了发光太阳能聚光器微反应器（LSC-PMs），其具有出色的能量效率。这些装置收集太阳能，将宽广的太阳光谱转换为窄波长区域，随后将重新发射的光子引导至反应通道。在此，我们报告通过增加数量策略实现此类LSC-PMs的可扩展性。我们工作中的关键是使用通过3D打印制造的模具。这使我们能够快速生产许多不同的原型，并以高效的方式通过实验优化关键设计方面。已经制造出了多达32个平行通道的反应器，使用分叉式流量分配器时显示出出色的流量分布（标准偏差低于10%）。这种出色的流量分布对于有效扩大模型反应规模至关重要，其产率与单通道装置中获得的产率相当。我们还发现，通道间距是增加数量的LSC-PMs的一个重要且独特的设计参数，它对反应通道内的光子通量有很大影响。
