4. A few examples of industrialization

In January 2006, there were officially some thirty production plants worldwide equipped with microstructured reactors, including around ten in Japan. This was certainly only the tip of the iceberg...

Since 1991, the number of patents on microreactors has increased significantly, with around 300 patents per year since 2002 . The top-20 microreactor patent holders include major groups (e.g. Merck, Degussa, Bayer, Clariant, etc.), research institutes (e.g. FZK, IMM, etc.) and equipment manufacturers (e.g. Velocys, Corning, etc.).

See Boxes 2, 3, 4 and 5 for specific patented processes....