PhotoChip Evaluation: Rowan M. Bailey, Postgraduate Researcher, Imperial College London (UK)
I recently trialled the Asynt PhotoChip LED Photoreactor which was kindly provided to my lab via a demo loan. My experience of using the reactor was great. The establishment and set up in the lab space was simple and the reactor was operational within the same day as arrival. The glass static mixer (GSM) used standard flow fittings which enabled a ‘plug-and-play’ application to our regular pumps and tubing.
The safety of the reactor was impressive to note as the interlock ensured that if the reactor is opened, irradiation terminated. This was especially important for our application which uses high lamp powers and UV-A wavelengths.
Translation of our chemistry from batch into the flow reactor showed a positive improvement for rate of reaction, reliability and overall reactivity versus batch conditions.
We were able to make good use of this to conduct kinetic sweeping experiments which relies on highly reproducible reactor conditions. In all, this methodology saved us > 20-fold material cost versus standard kinetic methodologies.
During this experimentation, no blockages or pressure build-up were observed despite the reaction producing a stoichiometric amount of salt byproduct. We experimented with the built-in light power feature and found that above 20% LED power, our reaction was fully saturated with photons.
Previously we have noted that understanding photon-limited versus photon-abundant regimes is central for reaction discovery. In all, the reactor was excellent for flow translation and required minimal prior expertise to get up and running. It is rare to span the range of skills required to advance photochemistry while also boasting the engineering know-how to design bespoke reactors. The PhotoChip reactor bridges this gap well and addresses key challenges in modern photochemistry.
Notes:
The PhotoChip LED Photoreactor Evaluation was shared with Asynt after the apparatus was trialled at Imperial College London recently. If you’d like to talk with one of our technical team to discuss how the PhotoChip could suit your application, please email [email protected].
Rowan Bailey, Postgraduate Researcher, The Crimmin Group, Imperial College London (UK)
Reference: ASY-EV-171
