Development of a fast sensor for the measurement of the residence time distribution of gas flow through microstructured reactors

Microreactor technology has developed various components in recent years—microreactors, micromixers, micro-heat exchangers and others. These components are advantageous with respect to the mixing procedure, heat transfer and also residence time distribution. However, it has hitherto not been possible to measure the residence time distribution of microstructures with gas flow with sufficient accuracy. This situation is very unsatisfactory. In this work, a sensor system was developed for the measurement of the residence time distribution for gas flow through microstructured devices. The sensor is based on a thermal conductivity detector and fulfills the requirements for such measurements.The sensor was tested on microreactors built by Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe. A relatively large dispersion within the microstructure was found, which could be the result of unequally distributed flow through the microreactor channels.