Microreaction engineering - is small better?

Microfabrication techniques are increasingly used in different fields of ch emistry to realize structures with capabilities exceeding those of conventi onal macroscopic systems. In addition to already demonstrated chemical and biological analysis applications, microfabricated chemical systems are expe cted to have a number of advantages for chemical synthesis, chemical kineti cs studies, and process development. Chemical processing advantages from in creased heat and mass transfer in small dimensions are demonstrated with mo del gas, liquid, and multiphase reaction systems. These case studies also s erve to illustrate benefits of integrating sensors for flow, temperature, a nd chemical composition with microfluidic reaction and control components. The role of reaction engineering in the development of microreaction techno logy is described along with new approaches to scale up based upon replicat ion of microchemical devices. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights res erved.