The measurement and characterisation of residence time distributions for laminar liquid flow in plastic microcapillary arrays

Residence time distributions (RTDs) for a thermoplastic microreactor system were experimentally measured using fibre optic probes and step change concentration inputs. The distributions were then compared to models assuming plug flow superimposed by axial dispersion. The disc-shaped plastic microreactors contained microcapillary arrays of up to 19 parallel channels with diameters around 230 μm and lengths of 10 m. Two different systems were investigated, with either 1 or 19 active capillaries. The magnitude of axial dispersion in those two systems was characterised using Peclet numbers, which were in the range of 15-221 depending on flow rate, demonstrating that molecular dispersion along a single 10 m capillary can provide near plug flow characteristics. The multiple-capillary array showed small perturbations of this plug flow like RTD behaviour as the 19 microcapillaries displayed slight variations in diameter. These results confirm that the flow inside the presented plastic multiple capillary device provides a near plug flow behaviour for the use in continuous microreactors.