Development and hydrodynamic characterization of a modular mini-plant photoreactor

The exponential decay of light intensity in absorbing media poses a particular challenge to the development of light-driven chemical reactions on an industrial scale. To counteract the challenges of the irradiation field, photoreactors are required to enable accelerated mass transport on both the laboratory and production scale. This contribution presents the development of a modular mini-plant photoreactor (MISCOP) designed to bridge the gap between small laboratory and industrial scale photoreactors. To improve the overall efficiency of the photoreactor, the acceleration of mass transport along the direction of light propagation through static mixers is experimentally and numerically investigated by exploiting the modularity of the photoreactor. The results reveal a significant narrowing of the residence time distribution as well as enhanced mass transport along the ray trajectory.