In view of the thermal sensitivity of peroxydicarbonate and the strong exothermic characteristic of the peroxidation reaction, it has to sacrifice the reaction efficiency to ensure safety in traditional industrial production. A micropacked bed has excellent transfer capability, small liquid holdup, and flexible operation mode, which can enable the safe and efficient synthesis of peroxydicarbonate. The synthesis of di(2-ethylhexyl) peroxydicarbonate (EHP) was investigated in a micropacked bed. Under conditions without catalysts, the effects of process parameters on the reaction were explored. Then, the process parameters were optimized by the response surface methodology, and the yield of EHP reaches 83.4% under optimized conditions. Moreover, the apparent kinetics of EHP synthesis was determined and the temperature distribution inside the micropacked bed was simulated. According to the simulation results, the thermal safety of micropacked bed was confirmed (ΔTmax ≤ 2.2 °C), and the control measures for bed temperature were also clarified.
Zhu et al. (Sat,) studied this question.