Patent ID: 7534404

Claim:
Methods of operating surface reactors comprising in each method the steps of: providing a reactor body having a reactor surface; feeding a first reactant to the reactor surface from a first entry location so that the reactant spreads out on the surface in the form of a first thin film; feeding a second reactant to the reactor surface from a second entry location so that the reactants can interact in a reaction zone on the reaction surface; and collecting the product of the interacting reactants at an outlet location; wherein: the reactor body provides a retaining surface closely spaced from the reactor surface so as to form between them a reaction passage providing a reaction zone between the second entry location and the outlet location and through which the reactants fed to the reactor surface will pass while reacting with one another, the reactor and retaining surfaces being movable relative to one another to apply shear between them to reactants passing in the reaction passage; each reactant after the first is fed to the reactor surface in the form of a respective thin film that is fed into a respective preceding thin film or combination of thin films, each thin film at its entry to the reaction passage immediately being subjected at its intersection with the preceding thin film or combination of thin films to continuous and uniform shear, the shear rate being such as to disrupt molecular clusters in the thin films and thereby permit the molecules of the thin films to aggressively react with one another to form the resultant product, wherein one or both of the reactor surface and the retaining surface is provided with heat transfer means to heat or cool the reactants in the reaction passage.