The Effective Method to Search the Optimal Experimental Conditions in a Micro Flow Reactor

Abstract

A batch reactor has been used for organic synthesis and pharmaceutical synthesis. But reaction intermediates and impurities have to be analyzed and this analysis requires a lot of time and costs. The micro flow reactor is expected to replace a batch reactor in organic synthesis. The micro flow reactor has the advantages such as significant reduction in the reaction time and energy consumption, Improving the yield and on-line measurement because it is capable of quickly and uniformly heating by uses of micro wave. However, we need to conduct a lot of experiments and find optimal conditions to obtain the high yield in this reactor. Therefore, the aim of this study is to develop the effective method to search the optimal experimental conditions in the micro flow reactor. The approximated curved surface for the experimental data was generated by experimental data such as flow rate, temperature and yield. The approximated curved surface was optimized by least squares method. This procedure was repeated until the difference between the measurement data and the analyzed data were within one percent. The data which was larger than the average was used in order to improve the approximation precision within the range of the high yield. The proposed method was able to search the optimal experimental conditions at one-third fewer runs than ordinary methods.