Abstract
Chemical reactions are often carried out under mixing, especially at an
industrial scale. Mixing aims to homogenize the concentrations and
temperatures of reactants over a whole reactor, and therefore often
requires a 3D flow and sometimes a 2D flow. This mixing-driven-chemistry
ignores or does not have to consider the effects of flow/mixing on
reaction kinetics and/or selectivity because flow/mixing is likely not
strong enough to significantly drive molecules from their equilibrium
conformations to non-equilibrium ones. This article proposes
flow-driven-chemistry which aims at manipulating the dynamics and
structural order of molecules (conformation, alignment, diffusion and
collision) through a strong 1D flow in order to tune the reaction
kinetics and/selectivity. It describes the scientific and technical
bases of flow-driven chemistry as well as its scientific and technical
challenges. It provides the state of the art of the understanding
related to flow-driven chemistry and perspectives for future
developments.