Kinetic study of reactions of aniline and benzoyl chloride in a microstructured chemical system

The reaction between aniline and benzoyl chloride is well known for producing high performance polymers and chemicals. But the fast main reaction and reversible consecutive side reaction make process rather complicated and no thorough kinetics study has ever been reported before. A microstructured chemical system, consisting of a micromixer, preheat exchange coiled capillaries, a delay loop, and a microhydrolyzer, was designed to carry out this reaction using N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone as the solvent. A kinetic model was established, and the values of kinetic constants, pre-exponential factors and activation energies of each reaction as well as their confidence intervals were acquired. With this model each substance concentration vs. residence time were obtained to help understand reaction process and further optimize operating conditions. Compared to earlier reports on this reaction, this microstructured chemical system provides more accurate parameters and can develop a reliable platform for kinetic study of similar chemical reactions. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J , 61: 3804–3811, 2015