Is there a point of diminishing returns when increasing your reactor size (ie going form 50 to 100L or 100L to 200+)? I talked to a few folks that have said they are not fans of anything larger than 20L for isolation purposes (reaction time, kinetics, and chillers/heater sizing are a few reasons they gave), and others that have commissioned custom 100L glass vessels for isolation.
I am looking at my options for scaling and would love any input. I am currently looking at several 50L or 100L units. Once the SOP’s have been thoroughly field tested and validated with the glass reactors I’d look to scale into large 200L + SS reactors. Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.
If youre doing a quick and dirty cold crash on a relatively pure solution, then it should take relatively the same amount of time to crash your larger mass. As for chiller options, it depends on how technical you are trying to get. If youre just getting the solution to ultra low temps with no regard for a temp gradient, then how about liquid nitrogen?
My reactor has a fluid jacket and an internal coil. This allows me to run a chiller/heater through one, while the other can be reserved for liquid nitrogen to achieve ultra low tempz.
Yeah I love it. Just have a hard time paying 40k for a crystallization vessel. I actually contacted them today and was hoping I could purchase just the crystal breaker but they said not at this time.