µRC Application Overview

Reaction Calorimetry allows vital data to be available for optimised and safe scale up. Testing carried out can fully characterise the kinetics of the process. It is possible to make a model of the reaction. Nevertheless there are potentially many scenarios that may require investigation during scale up. It is not appropriate to consider only the optimum processing scenario. The effects of temperature, of type and amount of impurity, additive (catalyst, inhibitor), the ratio of reagents, even the source of reagents. There are a large number of potential variations that can cause upset and these need to be quantified.Classical reaction calorimetry has the ability to mimic process conditions and thus such testing takes large volumes of reagents (that may not be available) and effort in terms of operator time and cost. This calls into question the practicability of such testing when really many tests need to be performed. Often an unsatisfactory compromise has to be reached where limited testing is carried out. The ability of micro reaction calorimetry to be able to perform most of the reaction calorimetry testing requirements of scale-up in a fraction of time with a fraction of the reagent requirement and at a fraction of the cost of full scale reaction calorimetry indicates the worth of such a technique. A micro reaction calorimeter has applications far beyond scale-up and reaction calorimetry itself. A micro reaction calorimeter is also a scanning calorimeter (a large volume DSC), an isothermal calorimeter (high sensitivity for stability studies), a properties calorimeter (for heat of solution, mixing and specific heats) and an isothermal titration calorimeter.