Microfluidic processing of HZSM-5 films in a capillary microreactor for the continuous acetalisation reaction of glycerol with acetone

This work presented microfluidic processing of zeolite films in a capillary microreactor and its potential application for biomass conversion. Uniform and continuous HZSM-5 zeolite films were fabricated under a continuous flow hydrothermal system in which the film thickness could be precisely tuned by flow rate and synthesis time. The catalytic performance of this acidic HZSM-5 film capillary microreactor was evaluated by the continuous flow acetalisation reaction of glycerol with acetone, affording ∼62.61% solketal yield under mild and solvent free conditions. No deactivation was observed even after 100 h, indicating the excellent stability of this HZSM-5 film capillary microreactor. This microfluidic processing strategy provided an extended applicability in the fabrication of zeolite film-based capillary microchannels with a high length-to-diameter ratio or other chip-based microchannel devices.