Engineering · Design & experiment

An ultrasonic microreactor.

A university team project to design, build, and test a continuous reactor—and investigate how ultrasound changes the reaction inside it.

KU Leuven2022–2023Team project

CAD rendering of the aluminium housing and transparent covers — The aluminium housing and plexiglass covers. The design places the reaction tubing above an ultrasonic transducer.

Underside of the reactor showing the toroidal cooling chamber — The lower chamber provides an air path around the transducer. The design separates this cooling circuit from the reaction compartment.

Underside of the plexiglass lid with an added rectangular plate — An extra plate on the underside of the lid helps hold the tubing against its contact points. This was a response to a practical problem in the design.

Explore three details of the design using the buttons above. CAD views from our project report.

The problem

Helping two liquids react.

The project studied a reaction between an organic phase and a water-based phase. Because the liquids do not mix readily, bringing them into contact is important. Our task was to investigate a continuous-flow approach assisted by ultrasound, and compare it with a batch experiment.

The reaction takes place inside narrow tubing arranged in a spiral. The spiral keeps a useful length of tubing within the active region above the transducer.

A design decision

Keeping the tubing in contact.

The tubing needs contact with the supporting structure for ultrasonic vibrations to reach it effectively. The inner turns of the spiral did not sit against the contact points as intended.

The design was revised by adding a plate to the underside of the plexiglass lid. It holds the tubing down against the supports. The revision addressed a practical assembly problem: keeping the spiral in place while maintaining contact with the supports.

Testing

From the drawing to the laboratory.

We compared operating conditions with and without ultrasound and cooling. The work included spectrophotometer calibration and concentration measurements, as well as thermal observations and temperature measurements to investigate cooling.

With ultrasound and both cooling systems operating, we measured a 98% yield at a residence time of 4 minutes 20 seconds. This result describes the reaction and operating conditions tested in our setup.

Project context

A shared build.

Completed for Problem Solving and Design 3 at KU Leuven with Laurens Matthijs, Caroline Rahier, Liam Statz, Staf Van Aelten, and Maud Van Mieghem.

Figures and experimental observations on this page are from our 2022–2023 final report, “Chemische discotheek — Ontwerp van een continue ultrasone reactor”.