Flowid has performed experiments to improve the efficiency and safety of highly hazardous lithium-halogen exchange reactions.

These experiments show the advantages of using the SpinPro technology versus conventional batch technology for these kinds of reactions.

Key results are the ease of scaling up to commercial production and flexibility to perform different chemical reactions in the same Flowid equipment.

In batch, lithium-halogen exchange typically requires very low temperatures, under -50° C in order to reduce the formation of impurities. Furthermore, the reaction typically uses larger volumes of solvent in order to control the heat generated by the process. Not only can SpinPro reactors dramatically improve the energy dissipation but they also have a clear advantage in their ability to handle solids up to a certain level.

SpinPro reactors have more than doubled the volumetric efficiency of batch processing and have produced products of an equivalent high quality using less than 50% of the solvent quantity need for batch processes.

A set of experimental runs for the SpinPro reactor have been designed and completed based on chemical feasibility studies. Results show excellent correlation with small-scale experiments allowing the direct scaling up from lab to production level. Production rates have been achieved of up to and higher than 100 Kg/hr of raw material in the SpinPro reactor with conversions greater than 95%.

The SpinPro reactor footprint of less than 1 m2 allows the unit to be installed virtually anywhere.

Start-to-finish sensor communications for process monitoring and data logging are built into the reactor and can be customised depending on demand.