Flexylab cuts time and cost of process development

Time and money spent on scaling up process development from lab to production can be drastically reduced by using Flexylab, says Ken Kimble (Reactor Vessels), the UK distributor for the Swiss manufacturer, Systag System Technik.

Flexylab is a modular, multi-reactor synthesis system consisting of an array of between four and six glass reaction vessels, but this may be extended to 16 or more, mounted in parallel. They can be operated either independently; under identical conditions; or in conditions in which an important parameter is varied in a pre-programmed or manually defined way. This enables any number of experiments to be carried out simultaneously to assess the optimum value of any given parameter such as temperature, pH, reactant concentrations, presence or absence of catalysts, etc.

All the reactors use the same cooling thermostat with the heat transfer fluid passing through a jacket surrounding the vessels in the array, but the individual reactors have independent temperature control from an electric heating jacket in each reactor unit. Each reactor has an electronically controlled mixer; two highly accurate, gravimetric dosing systems; facilities for flushing the system with air or nitrogen and entry points for measuring and sampling devices.