Uncatalyzed Oxidation of Cyclohexane in the Microchannels

• Published in: Key engineering materials 2013-07, Vol.562-565, p.1542-1547
• Main Authors: Zhu, Ming Qiao, Wang, Lei, Hu, Hong Ding, Lu, Jian Gang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Conversion; Cyclohexane; Cyclohexanone; Microchannels; Mixers; Oxidation; Safety; Selectivity
• ISSN: 1013-9826; 1662-9795; 1662-9795
• DOI: 10.4028/www.scientific.net/KEM.562-565.1542

The oxidation of cyclohexane in the microchannels not only improves the safety of the reaction, but also the performance of the oxidation reaction. Different gas-liquid micro mixers were used for the mixing of gas and liquid before entering into microchannels, and SIMM-V2 performed best of all. Excellent slug/plug flow can be formed in the microchannels after mixing in the gas-liquid micro mixer when the molar ratio of oxygen to cyclohexane is less than 0.5:1. The conversion of cyclohexane increased as the residence time increased, but the selectivity of cyclohexanol and cyclohexanone increased first and then decreased. At the reaction temperature of 200 °C, with the flow rate of the solvent isopropanol being 1 mL/min and the molar ratio of oxygen to cyclohexane being 0.15:1, both the conversion of cyclohexane and selectivity of cyclohexanol and cyclohexanone increased with the increase of pressure. The conversion of cyclohexane and selectivity of cyclohexanol and cyclohexanone reached 10.10% and 66.93% respectively at the pressure of 8 MPa. It is indicated that the new process by use of uncatalyzed cyclohexane oxidation in the microchannels will have very attractive prospects in the improvement of the safety, intensification of the gas-liquid mass transfer and obtaining good reactive performance. Therefore, the technology shows good potential in industrial applications.