The Cooled Fixed Bed Reactor enables catalyst-, reagent- and scavenger-packed columns to be operated at temperatures down to -70 °C, extending the capabilities of continuous flow chemistry to cryogenic heterogeneous reactions. Combining precise temperature control with the benefits of immobilised reagents and catalysts, the reactor provides a simple and efficient platform for performing temperature-sensitive transformations under continuous flow conditions.
Application examples
- Continuous reactions using immobilised metal catalysts
- Low-temperature heterogeneous catalysis
- Organometallic and organolithium chemistry
- Continuous reactions using supported reagents
- Immobilised enzyme catalysis
- Temperature-sensitive packed-bed reactions
Cooled Fixed Bed Reactor features
- Ambient to -70 °C operating range
- Compatible with 6.6 mm and 10 mm ID packed columns
- 150 mm cooled column assembly
- PTFE, borosilicate glass and FFKM wetted materials
- Simple dry ice cooling (no recirculating chiller required)
- Suitable for catalyst-, scavenger- and reagent-packed columns
- Pressures up to 20 bar
Key advantages
Many heterogeneous reactions benefit from low temperatures to improve selectivity, suppress side reactions or stabilise reactive intermediates. The Cooled Fixed Bed Reactor enables these reactions to be performed safely under continuous flow conditions while maintaining excellent temperature control across the packed bed. Because cooling is achieved using a compact dry ice module, no external recirculating chiller is required, making cryogenic packed-bed chemistry straightforward to implement on existing Vapourtec flow systems.
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.
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.
