Vapourtec cooled column reactor contain a column within a glass manifold, in which heat transfer in or out of the column is achieved by controlling the temperature of the surrounding gas flowing through the glass manifold. This temperature is measured at the outer wall of the column, in such a way that it is representative of the temperature on the inner wall.
There are many advantages to this design, (compared to the conventional method of clamping the column between heated metal jaws), such as:
- The contents of the column are always visible.
- The column heating is absolutely even, with no hot spots.
- Columns may be used for workup, for scavengers, solid supported catalysts, solid supported reagents, or even to dispense reagents.
Max pressure depends on the bore of the column and, for larger sizes, temperature.
Note that the thermocouple is different from that on the tube reactor manifold, and they are not interchangeable.
Cooled column reactor features
- Ambient to -40 °C
- Ideal for scavenger resins, immobilised catalysts, solid supported reagents
- Full visibility of column contents
- Precise temperature control
- No external recirculating chiller required
How does it work ?
The standard Vapourtec system controls temperature by blowing air around the reactor within the reactor manifold. Hot air is used to raise the reactor temperature, ambient air is used to cool it.
With the cooled reactor module, a dry ice heat exchanger is used to generate chilled nitrogen which is used to cool the reactor down to the low temperatures required. No external recirculating chiller is required, and the reactor temperature set point is completely programmable, under the control of either the simple front panel controls or the R-Series control software.
New users are often strangely skeptical of the forced convection temperature control used by Vapourtec – until they have used it. It is clean, reliable, and provides extremely accurate temperature control. Because the reactor tube is surrounded on all sides by the temperature controlled gas, conductivity is actually better than the line contact achieved by winding a reactor tube around a metal mandrel. And the new cooled reactor module is no exception.
What else will I need to use this new module ?
- You’ll need access to dry ice, and a supply of dry nitrogen.
- No additional recirculating chiller, water supply, or other cooling equipment is required.
- Please contact us using the links below for more information or a quotation.
