Process Development and Scale-up of the Continuous Flow Nitration of Trifluoromethoxybenzene

In this work, continuous flow nitration of trifluoromethoxybenzene (TFMB) was conducted in a microchannel reactor. The effects of process parameters, including temperature, residence time, sulfuric acid strength, flow rate, and reactor structure, were systemically investigated. It was found that the aforementioned process parameters had significant effect on TFMB conversion, while the product selectivity was merely sensitive to the reaction temperature. On the basis of the results of process parameter optimization, a scale-up strategy combining microreactor with distributed packed tubular reactor was presented. Consequently, excellent performance was achieved in the combined reactor with a kilogram-scale production.