Nitrification involves introducing a carbon atom of an organic substance into a nitro group to increase the activity of a nucleophilic displacement reaction, or converting a nitro group into another group to prepare for the next reaction. The nitrification reaction is exothermic and the by-products are formed when the reaction time is too long. Therefore, reasonable control of the temperature and time of the reaction is the key to success.

Himile used microchannel reactor to conduct a small test on the nitrification synthesis reaction of pendimethalin.

The data resulted from conventional tank reactors and microchannel reactors are listed in the table below:

The small-scale experimental experiment with the microchannel reactor solves the problems of the traditional tank reactor, such as intense exothermation, long reaction time and many by-products, reducing the amount of nitric acid and impurities, and improving the reaction conversion and selectivity. The batch process is converted to a continuous process to improve product stability.