AUTHOR=Lancel Maxime , Gomez Catherine , Port Marc , Amara Zacharias 

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

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Chemical Engineering

VOLUME=Volume 3 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/chemical-engineering/articles/10.3389/fceng.2021.752364

DOI=10.3389/fceng.2021.752364

ISSN=2673-2718

ABSTRACT=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 outperform 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 favors the desired photooxidation over the undesired deactivation pathway. This study highlights the importance of photocatalyst stability in batch versus flow photochemistry.