Photocatalytic reactions in microreactors

A photocatalytic microreactor with immobilized TiO2 layer was developed and the processes of degradation and reduction of organic compounds, and amine N-alkylation in microspace were examined. These model reactions proceeded very rapidly with considerably large photonic efficiencies. In contrast to the result in a batch reactor, we successfully observed N-alkylation reaction of benzylamine by using the microreactor with immobilized Pt-free TiO2 as well as TiO2/Pt. These results suggest the feasibility of a catalytic microreaction system on organic photoreactions.