This article classifies high pressure reactor according to their volume and provides a simple diagram that will help you understand the concept of autoclaves.
In simple terms, a high pressure reactor is a reactor that can provide high pressure reaction conditions for the medium.
It can be seen that high pressure reactors are a very large category.
So, the concept of high pressure reactor confused a lot of people, because sometime a reactor providing a certain pressure can be called as high pressure reactor, sometimes another reactor with same pressure couldn't be classified into high pressure.
During these years, almost no one could describe it clearly, until we find it has obvious boundaries when divided accordingly to their sizes.
Please have a look at below diagram:
For reactors with volumes of 0.1L to 50L, the high pressure is 10MPa to 100 MPa.
For reactors between 50L and 100L, the high pressure is 7.0 MPa to 35 MPa.
For reactors with a volume exceeding 1000L, pressures up to 4MPa can be classified as autoclaves.
From this diagram, we could find the relationship between the high pressure reactors and reactors catagories by sizes.
Because reactors under 50L are often used for experiment, so they are lab scale reactor.Their high pressure group can be roughly classified from 10MPa to 100 MPa.
Among them, people usually call 0.1L to 1L reactors micro-reactors, because their small sizes. We could find from the diagram, their maximum pressure can reach 100 MPa , which is th highest pressure among all high pressure reactors. And the rest group from 1L to 50L, the highest pressure is 50MPa.
The reactor with 50L to 1000L are pilot reactors. Their high pressure group is 2MPa to 35 MPa.
Similarly, high-pressure reactors above 1000L are classified as high-pressure industrial reactors with pressure ranges from 1MPa to 4 MPa.
Besides the high pressure reactor, there is also ultra-high pressure reactor.
Although ultra-high pressure reactors seems to cover a wider range, ultra-high pressure reactors are rare because of limitation of process technology and materials in practical applications.
Usually, most of ultra-high pressure reactors are concentrated between 1000L and 20000L, and their pressure is more than 4MPa.
The relationship between high pressure and temperature of a reactor.
In addition to volume, the temperature provided by the reactor also has a crucial effect on the upper limit of pressure. For example, high temperature high pressure reactor with temperature reaches 400°C, bears lower pressure than the high pressure reactor with normal temperature.
All in all, when we propose a high pressure reactor, we should not only consider its pressure, but also pay attention to its volume and tempearture.
It is because the basic parameters are not isolated, but closely related to the materials it using in the design and manufacturing.
It involves complex calculations. Weihai Global Chemical Machinery Mfg Co.,Ltd provides free consultant services for customers in the initial design of reactors. If you have any questions, please contact us for consultation.
