A Method for the Identification of Multiple Blocked Locations in a Microreactor without a Combinatorial Explosion of CFD Simulations for Database Construction

Microreactors with parallelized microchannels are widely used in chemical industries because a single microchannel processes only a small amount of raw material. Any blockage in parallelized microchannels causes poor uniformity of the residence time distribution among the microchannels, which leads to degrade product quality. To address this issue, we developed a method for the identification of multiple blocked locations. The method identifies blockage locations by comparing measured pressure distribution data with pressure distribution data that is calculated by computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation when blockage occurs. For this research, we extended the method to apply to cases in which there are three or more blocked microchannels without incurring any combinatorial explosion of CFD simulations for the database construction. The proposed method identifies multiple blocked locations using only pressure distribution data obtained when each single microchannel in a microreactor is blocked. The results of CFD simulations showed that the method accurately identified three blocked locations by using fewer pressure sensors than there were microchannels.