Voraxial reactors in large-scale liquid processing

The voraxial reactor is an elegant but simple device for the large-scale separation of liquids. In essence it comprises only two parts – a pipe and an impeller. Feeding a given liquid into the pipe through the impeller creates a vortex which swirls and eventually dissipates around the horizontal axis of the pipe. Voraxial reactors are mainly used in the petroleum industry to separate mixtures of oil and water.
In a recently completed EPSRC sponsored research initiative, the project partners succeeded in carrying out a simultaneous enzyme catalyzed transformation/separation in a desk-top countercurrent chromatograph – driving an awkward, oxygen-sensitive reaction to 100% completion and effecting 100% product separation. This technique, which we term LLRS (liquid-liquid/reaction-separation) has the potential: (i) to convert batch bioprocesses into continuous bioprocesses; (ii) to effect cost reduction in, or dispense altogether with, the expensive down-stream processing steps of centrifugation, separation and purification, and (iii) to considerably simplify waste water handling. This project seeks to take the innovative step of combining these two technologies and demonstrating their use in a specific, large-scale industrial application with a view to subsequent commercial exploitation by the partners. The project has two key objectives: (a) to generate sufficiently robust data to file a patent in the application concerned and (b) to establish the process at pilot-scale and thereby attract further investment which will allow the partners to develop this promising enabling technology both in the specific application and a range of other applications.