A Comparison of Commercial Microwave Reactors for Scale-Up within Process Chemistry

Seven commercially available microwave reactors designed for limited scale-up have been investigated using a highly reliable and robust reaction (the Newman−Kwart rearrangement). The use of a single reaction has enabled the comparison to be made across the range of different reactor types and scales. Overall, all reactors gave reliable scale-up from small scale, and performance equivalent to one another on large scale. A more detailed comparison between them is given in the concluding section.