Offering a range of benefits over ‘homebrew’ custom made reactor set-ups such as seamless integration of various control sensors and automation software as well as guaranteed safe performance at high temperatures and pressures.
The offering is designed to meet the needs of process chemists working in scale-up or ‘kilo’ labs, where the 5l limit of the Atlas system is no longer big enough, or where high pressure reactor set-ups are needed.
Early adopters of the company’s custom reactor systems include the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies and CROs (contract research organisations) as well as firms in the petrochemical, agrochemical, flavours and fragrance industries.
The firm will design and build complete bespoke reactor systems for customers, integrating reactors, stirrers, circulators, resistance temperature detectors (RTDs), pumps, balances, sensors and even FTIR devices so that chemists can log and control all the reaction parameters they need.
According to Mike Hawes, Sales & Marketing Director at Syrris, the launch of the new custom design service is in response to an overwhelming number of requests from customers.
“We originally viewed requests for bespoke reactor systems as a bit of a distraction from the development of our major product lines, Atlas, FRX and Africa, but the large demand has led us to dedicate resources to form the Custom Laboratory Reactor Systems group,” said Hawes.
Prior to the official launch of the service, Syrris emailed its customers to announce the new offering and says it has since been 'inundated' with requests for quotes for custom reactors.
Hawes said in an interview that when reactions go to the scale-up stage, researchers tend to want lots of process automation and sensing equipment so that yields are maximised and if a reaction batch fails, the data logs for the reaction can be tracked to see what went wrong.
He continued by explaining that the company can integrate any equipment fitted with an RS232 connector into the reactor set-up enabling customers to specify the sensing and control equipment they desire and control it all through the Atlas software.
“We have spent 25 man years developing the Atlas software and one if its unique capabilities is that it has been designed to control any equipment fitted with an RS232 interface, enabling users to automate and control the reactors in a very sophisticated manner,” said Hawes.
The software allows users to view the data from any sensor feedbacks attached to the reactor from a single file, enabling process chemists to see how much reagent was added at what time and at what temperature.
“One of the key areas which sets us apart from our competitors is our expertise in making high temperature and pressure reactors, and we are proud of the breadth of this offering, which includes a wide range of materials and a large number of instruments we can interface with, ensuring we can nearly always provide exactly what our customers want,” said Hawes.