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Forced Convection Technology

 

The Vapourtec R Series system uses a unique system for controlling reactor temperature.

The reactor, be it a coiled tube or a glass column, is housed inside an insulated manifold in which temperature controlled gas is rapidly circulated.

 

 

 

There are a number of advantages to this approach.

1. The control temperature is measured at the reactor wall (not on some nearby block of metal).   Trials have shown this to be totally representative of the reagent temperature.   Comparative anaylsis of other design approaches shows this not to be the case.
2. Unlike systems where the reactor is a tube wrapped round a block, or a column clamped between metal jaws, the thermal inertia of the Vapourtec system is very low.  The system responds to changes in temperature very rapidly, making automated optimisation across a range of reaction conditions far more productive
3. The system has excellent active cooling.    This is important for both returning to safe temperatures after high temp reactions, AND for getting rid of heat from exothermic reactions.   Many competing systems have little or no active cooling and will actually run away if used with a genuinely exothermic reaction.  This ability to cope with (and even help you quantify) an exotherm is well explained here.
4.

The reactor is kept at a uniform temperature over it's entire length.   As the reactor is surrounded on all sides by gas of the target temperature, there are no cold spots.   Contrast this with competing designs where a tube is coiled round a heated former but at least half of the tube surface is not in contact with the former and hence is at a temperature somewhere nearer to ambient conditions.  The contents of the reactor, therefore, sit at an unknown temperature somewhere between the target and ambient.

The design of the Vapourtec reactor heating system was the result of a great deal of R&D work.   The same approaches used by Vapourtec's competitors today were rejected during this development program due to unavoidable temperature inaccuracy gradients.
5. The Vapourtec system allows full visibility of the contents of glass columns and PFA tube reactors at all times.   Competing column heaters use metal clamps to heat columns, resulting in zero visibility of the temperature controlled region.
6.

It's clean and simple.  Reactor cartridges can be changed in seconds.  
7. The absence of both physical stresses and temperature hotspots mean long life for reactors.   Coupled with Vapourtec's intelligent software that limits reactor pressure based on temperature as necessary, this results in many years of life from tube reactors that some competitors effectively regard as consumable items.