Optimal channel design and sensor placement in flow distributors for detecting blockage of parallelized microreactors

Abstract

When the production capacity of micro chemical plants is increased by numbering-up approach, it is important to realize the uniform flow distribution among the parallelized microreactors. In addition, a blocked microreactor needs to be identified as early as possible to achieve the stable long-term operation of micro chemical plants. In this research, a system that can detect a blocked microreactor by using just two flow sensors is developed. The performance of the developed system is maximized by adjusting the channel size and sensor placement in the flow distributors. The effectiveness of the developed system and the optimal design result is demonstrated by computational fluid dynamics simulation.