Butyl Lithium
The major industrial applications of Butyl Lithium are for the rubber and plastic market and moreover as tool in the organic synthesis of API.
Drawbacks of using this chemistry in stirred tank type of vessels are: the fear of fire and explosions, not being able to control the reaction and not being able to scale up.
We believe this can be overcome by using our SpinPro Reactor, reactions with Butyllithium can be executed safer, while being in total control of the reaction at every moment and can be scaled up linearly easily, whilst reducing Capex and Opex costs substantially.
Capex reduction can be up to 40%, due to the reduced reaction volume and reduced safety requirements. Opex reduction can be achieved by using less operators for the same production amount. Also energy costs are reduced significantly, due to the ability of producing at ambient temperature opposed to cryogenic temperatures.
By breaking up the aggregates the SpinPro is able to reach much higher reaction rates as the aggregates slow down the reaction. Therefore the process can be intensified to run at elevated temperatures – making a stable lithiate, producing fewer byproducts. The use of cryogenic conditions is unnecessary, because the SpinPro Reactor is operated at ambient temperature.
SpinPro technology can be linearly scaled by adding more rotor-stator stages on an axis, whereas stirred tank type of vessels will run into problems as there will be less heat transfer area, with more reactive volume.
For additional information and demonstrations feel free to contact Wouter Stam or Marion Timmermans.
Read the Specialty Chemicals Magazine article about BuLi reactions performed in a SpinPro reactor:
SpinPro Reactors are available in different sizes and configurations:
Examples relevant for Buthyl Lithium chemistry:
Butyl-Lithium Chemistry in the Flowid SpinPro Reactors
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 [...]
Whitepaper: Successful Scale Up of Butyl-Lithium using the SpinPro Reactor
In a pursuit of improving safety and process efficiency, Biogen a top Biotech company collaborated with Proteaf Technologies and Flowid to scale up a highly hazardous lithium-halogen exchange followed by quench reaction sequence at ChemConnection, Oss, NL. The sequence demonstrated successful scale up of laboratory spinning disk technology to the [...]
SpinPro Reactor for Butyl Lithium Reaction
Flowid demonstrated that the SpinPro Reactor is well suited for performing hazardous and pyrophoric Lithium Halogen Exchange. An extensive engineering and safety effort resulted in successful experiments. Lithium Halogen Exchange is a type of carbon-carbon bond forming reaction frequently performed in lab scale organic synthesis. Although the reaction is performed [...]