Microfluidical Microwave Reactor for Accelerating Chemical Reactions

AbstractMicrowave treatment can reduce the time of selected syntheses, for instance of the gold nanoparticles, from several hours to the few minutes. We propose microfluidic structure for enhancing rate of chemical reactions using microwave power. This reactor is designed to control microwave power with much higher accuracy than in standard devices. Thanks to this the influence of microwave irradiation on the rate of chemical reactions can be investigated. The reactor consists of transmission line surrounded by the ground metallization. In order to efficient deliver microwave power to the fluid matching networks are optimized using numerical methods. The monolithic device is fabricated in the Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramics (LTCC) technology. This material exhibits excellent microwave performance, and is resistant to many chemical substances as well as high temperature. Fabrication of the devices is described in details. Measurements of microwave parameters are performed and differences between simulation and experiment results are discussed