Performances of Homogeneous and Heterogenized Methylene Blue on Silica Under Red Light in Batch and Continuous Flow Photochemical Reactors

Maxime Lancel (1) , Catherine Gomez (1) , Marc Port (1) , Zacharias Amara (1)

1 GBCM - Laboratoire Génomique, bioinformatique et chimie moléculaire

Methylene blue was efficiently immobilized on silica micro- and nanoparticles by electrostatic interactions and the performances of the heterogenized photocatalysts were compared against the homogeneous conditions using the photooxidation of citronellol as a model reaction under red light, in a batch and a continuous flow photochemical reactor. In batch, the heterogeneous photocatalyst outperforms the homogeneous one, presumably due to kinetic and stability effects. The two catalytic systems are also compared in a flow reactor displaying improved mass transfer properties. We demonstrate that this results in a dramatic enhancement in photocatalyst stability, reactivity and productivity. This study highlights the importance of photocatalyst stability under homogeneous versus heterogenized conditions and in batch versus flow photochemistry.

Keywords: photochemistry; flow chemistry; green chemistry; heterogeneous photocatalysis; catalysis; singlet oxygen; process intensifcation

Domains: Chemical engineering

Maxime Lancel, Catherine Gomez, Marc Port, Zacharias Amara. Performances of Homogeneous and Heterogenized Methylene Blue on Silica Under Red Light in Batch and Continuous Flow Photochemical Reactors. Frontiers in Chemical Engineering, 2021, 3, pp.752364. ⟨10.3389/fceng.2021.752364⟩. ⟨hal-03604228⟩