Flash chemistry using electrochemical method and microsystems

This feature article provides a brief outline of the concept of flash chemistry for conducting extremely fast reactions in organic synthesis using electrochemically generated highly reactive species and microsystems.     

Flash Chemistry Extensively Optimized: High‐Temperature Swern–Moffatt Oxidation in an Automated Microreactor Platform

The generally accepted benefits of small lateral dimensions of microreactors (1 μm to 1 mm) enable a different way of performing synthetic chemistry: Extremely short contact times in the millisecond range can circumvent the need for performing highly exothermic and fast reactions at very low temperatures. In order to fully exploit this technology, such fast processes need to be redesigned and investigated for optimal reaction conditions, which can differ drastically from the ones traditionally applied. In a comprehensive study, we optimized the selective Swern–Moffatt oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde by varying five experimental parameters, including reaction time and temperature. Employing an ultrashort mixing and reaction time of only 32 ms, the optimal temperature was determined to be 70 °C, approximately 150 °C higher than in the conventional batch conditions. This remarkable difference shows both the potency of continuous‐flow chemistry as well as the urgency of a paradigm shift in reaction design for continuous‐flow conditions.     

Reactions of Difunctional Electrophiles with Functionalized Aryllithium Compounds: Remarkable Chemoselectivity by Flash Chemistry

Flash chemistry using flow microreactors enables highly chemoselective reactions of difunctional electrophiles with functionalized aryllithium compounds by virtue of extremely fast micromixing. The approach serves as a powerful method for protecting‐group‐free synthesis using organolithium compounds and opens a new possibility in the synthesis of polyfunctional organic molecules.     

Chemistry in microstructured reactors

The application of microstructured reactors in the chemical process industry has gained significant importance in recent years. Companies that offer not only microstructured reactors, but also entire chemical process plants and services relating to them, are already in existence. In addition, many institutes and universities are active within this field, and process-engineering-oriented reviews and a specialized book are available. Microstructured systems can be applied with particular success in the investigation of highly exothermic and fast reactions. Often the presence of temperature-induced side reactions can be significantly reduced through isothermal operations. Although microstructured reaction techniques have been shown to optimize many synthetic procedures, they have not yet received the attention they deserve in organic chemistry. For this reason, this Review aims to address this by providing an overview of the chemistry in microstructured reactors, grouped into liquid-phase, gas-phase, and gas-liquid reactions.     

纳米沸石修饰微通道反应器内固定化酶催化的水解反应动力学

通过在毛细管内层叠层组装纳米沸石并固定脂肪酶来构建纳米沸石修饰的固定化酶微反应器通道,将纳米沸石良好的生物相容性和高的酶固定能力与微反应器反应效率高、扩散传质快等优点相结合. 以对硝基苯棕榈酸酯的水解作为探针反应对该微反应器内固定化酶催化水解反应动力学进行了研究和计算,并与普通反应器内同样的反应进行比较. 通过对比米氏方程参数,证实在微反应器内酶催化水解反应效率可比普通反应器内提高3倍以上并可提高酶和反应底物的亲和能力.     

Oxo-Thiolation of Cationically Polymerizable Alkenes Using Flow Microreactors

The present study describes the cationic oxo-thiolation of polymerizable alkenes by using highly reactive cationic species generated by anodic oxidation. These highly reactive cations were able to activate alkenes before their polymerization. Fast mixing in flow microreactors effectively controlled chemoselectivity, enabling higher reaction temperatures.     

固定床反应器参数灵敏性与失控分析

本文采用邻二甲苯氧化的复合反应动力学模型分析了固定床反应器的参数灵敏性和失控行为,并与该反应的简单反应动力学模型的研究结果作了比较,发现二者间有显著的差别。本文还考察了固定床反应器对冷却介质流量和进口温度的灵敏性,发现反应器对冷却介质流量和进口温度的发迹极其敏感。因此对于强放热反应过程,考虑反应器对冷却介质的流量和进口温度的参数灵敏性对反应器的设计和控制是必要的。     

Microreaction Technology for Synthetic Chemistry

Microreaction technology as an emerging tool for synthetic chemistry has been extensively applied in academic and industrial researches. Normally, synthetic chemists used to running reactions in the classical glassware for centuries are unfamiliar and unaccustomed to use microreaction technology for routine synthetic work. This review tries to give a general introduction of the capabilities of microreaction technology. After introducing the origin and history of microreaction technology, we review and discuss mainly several synthetic examples of high T‐P reactions, hazardous reactions, flash chemistry, polymerization, photochemistry, electrochemistry and multistep API's syntheses to demonstrate the capabilities of microreactors. A summary and perspectives on microreactor technology are also given in this paper. It is anticipated that more and more chemists will understand the capabilities and limitations of microreaction technology, and could work together with chemical engineers for the synergic development of chemistry and chemical engineering.     

Some recent advances in the design and the use of miniaturized droplet-based continuous process: applications in chemistry and high-pressure microflows

This mini-review focuses on two different miniaturizing approaches: the first one describes the generation and use of droplets flowing within a millifluidic tool as individual batch microreactors. The second one reports the use of high pressure microflows in chemistry. Millifluidics is an inexpensive, versatile and easy to use approach which is upscaled from microfluidics. It enables one to produce hierarchically organized multiple emulsions or particles with a good control over sizes and shapes, as well as to provide a convenient data acquisition platform dedicated to slow or rather fast chemical reactions, i.e., from hours to a few minutes. High-pressure resistant devices were recently fabricated and used to generate stable droplets from pressurized fluids such as supercritical fluid-liquid systems. We believe that supercritical microfluidics is a promising tool to develop sustainable processes in chemistry.     

Continuous‐Flow Technology—A Tool for the Safe Manufacturing of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients

In the past few years, continuous‐flow reactors with channel dimensions in the micro‐ or millimeter region have found widespread application in organic synthesis. The characteristic properties of these reactors are their exceptionally fast heat and mass transfer. In microstructured devices of this type, virtually instantaneous mixing can be achieved for all but the fastest reactions. Similarly, the accumulation of heat, formation of hot spots, and dangers of thermal runaways can be prevented. As a result of the small reactor volumes, the overall safety of the process is significantly improved, even when harsh reaction conditions are used. Thus, microreactor technology offers a unique way to perform ultrafast, exothermic reactions, and allows the execution of reactions which proceed via highly unstable or even explosive intermediates. This Review discusses recent literature examples of continuous‐flow organic synthesis where hazardous reactions or extreme process windows have been employed, with a focus on applications of relevance to the preparation of pharmaceuticals.     

Microwave-assisted organic synthesis in microstructured reactors

The coupling of microwave heating with microprocessing in continuous-flow reactors has been reviewed in various organic synthesis reactions. The fast growing field of microwave and microreactor technology has a significant impact on the development of fine chemicals industry. Both technologies offer not only the possibility of realizing many of the individual advantages integrated into one combined system, but also the potential of eliminating the major hurdle of a limited microwave penetration depth for large-scale chemical synthesis. Metal film-coated capillary microreactors allow creation of local hot spots to achieve temperatures far in excess of the solvent temperature, which accelerates chemical reactions under MW heating.     

Microreactors as Tools for Synthetic Chemists—The Chemists' Round‐Bottomed Flask of the 21st Century?

Will microreactors replace the round‐bottomed flask to perform chemical reactions in the near future? Recent developments in the construction of microstructured reaction devices and their wide‐ranging applications in many different areas of chemistry suggest that they can have a significant impact on the way chemists conduct their experiments. Miniaturizing reactions offers many advantages for the synthetic organic chemist: high‐throughput scanning of reaction conditions, precise control of reaction variables, the use of small quantities of reagents, increased safety parameters, and ready scale‐up of synthetic procedures. A wide range of single‐ and multiphase reactions have now been performed in microfluidic‐based devices. Certainly, microreactors cannot be applied to all chemistries yet and microfluidic systems also have disadvantages. Limited reaction‐time range, high sensitivity to precipitating products, and new physical, chemical, and analytical challenges have to be overcome. This concept article presents an overview of microfluidic devices available for chemical synthesis and evaluates the potential of microreactor technology in organic synthesis.     

3D-Printed Phenacrylate Decarboxylase Flow Reactors for the Chemoenzymatic Synthesis of 4-Hydroxystilbene

Continuous flow systems for chemical synthesis are becoming a major focus in organic chemistry and there is a growing interest in the integration of biocatalysts due to their high regio- and stereoselectivity. Methods established for 3D bioprinting enable the fast and simple production of agarose-based modules for biocatalytic reactors if thermally stable enzymes are available. We report here on the characterization of four different cofactor-free phenacrylate decarboxylase enzymes suitable for the production of 4-vinylphenol and test their applicability for the encapsulation and direct 3D printing of disk-shaped agarose-based modules that can be used for compartmentalized flow microreactors. Using the most active and stable phenacrylate decarboxylase from Enterobacter spec. in a setup with four parallel reactors and a subsequent palladium(II) acetate-catalysed Heck reaction, 4-hydroxystilbene was synthesized from p-coumaric acid with a total yield of 14.7 % on a milligram scale. We believe that, due to the convenient direct immobilization of any thermostable enzyme and straightforward tuning of the reaction sequence by stacking of modules with different catalytic activities, this simple process will facilitate the establishment and use of cascade reactions and will therefore be of great advantage for many research approaches.     

Advanced organic synthesis using microreactor technology

Organic synthesis in microreactors is a novel way of performing reactions in a highly controlled way. The benefits of microreactors result from their physical properties, such as enhanced mass and heat transfer as well as regular flow profiles leading to improved yields with increased selectivities.     

Fast Isomerization Before Isomerization-Hydroformylation: Probing the Neglected Period with A Novel Microfluidic Device

By combining the concept of flash chemistry and radial synthesis, a novel microreactor (Flashstop reactor) was designed to study isomerization process of hydroformylation by a Rh/tetraphosphite catalyst in a time scale of seconds. It was found that in the initial 313 seconds, 60–99 % of 1-octene was isomerized to 2- and 3-octenes before the formation of aldehydes. Within this period, two different types of isomerization reactions were observed. It was proposed that a monohydride complex without CO ligand accounts for the ultrafast isomerization in the initial 30 seconds. The isomerization rate with such monohydride species was calculated much faster than that with the well-known H(CO)Rh(P−P) species. Both experimental and DFT computational studies were carried out to support this assumption. Fast transformations early on in catalytic cycles have been rarely studied due to the lack of proper tools. We believe that the Flashstop reactor is a powerful tool for analysis of kinetics in gas-liquid biphasic reactions within a time scale of seconds to minutes.     

Formation and Properties of Solvated Electrons

In the formulation of many chemical reactions, electrons are regarded as readily transferable particles, though their participation in these reactions cannot be directly observed. However, the discovery that electrons can be produced in various ways in suitable solutions and that they are stabilized by solvation and can thus be studied directly has recently led to a rapid growth of interest in these, the simplest and most reactive particles of chemistry. The solvated electron has physical properties that permit its detection by various methods even at very low concentrations, so that it is also possible to follow its many reactions, most of which are extremely fast.     

Microfluidic Device： A Miniaturized Platform for Chemical Reactions

Microfluidic devices, as a new miniaturized platform stemming from the field of micro-electromechanical sys-tems, have been used in many disciplines. In the field of chemical reactions, microfluidic device-based microreac-tors have shown great promise in building new chemical technologies and processes with increased speed and reli- ability and reduced sample consumption and cost. This technology has also become a new and effective tool for precise, high-throughput, and automatic analysis of chemical synthesis processes. Compared with conventional chemical laboratory batch methodologies, microfluidic reactors have a number of features, such as high mixing ef- ficiency, short reaction time, high heat-transfer coefficient, small reactant volume, controllable residence time, and high surface-to-volume ratio, among others. Combined with recent advances in microfluidic devices for chemical reactions, this review aims to give an overview of the features and applications of microfluidic devices in the field of chemical synthesis. It also aims to stimulate the development of microfluidic device applications in the field of chemical reactions.     

Reactivity of benzylidene and alkylidenemalonates in radical addition mediated with dialkylzincs – An intriguing story

Benzylidene- and alkylidenemalonates are extremely reactive radical acceptors in dialkylzinc-mediated radical additions. Theoretical investigations showed that the multi-step radical-polar crossover process should be highly exothermic. Not only the addition of the alkyl radical to the complexed substrate is enthalpically favored but what is more, the homolytic substitution at the metal leading to a zinc enolate should also be exothermic, even though it necessitates the cleavage of the C-Zn bond from the complexed α-alkoxycarbonyl radical intermediate. This work was undertaken to highlight the power of chelation in controlling the fate of this type of reaction. Much to our surprise, no unambiguous experimental evidence could be put forward to prove the formation of the expected zinc enolate intermediate. Additionally, benzylidenemalonates and their alkylidene analogues (although to a lesser extent) exhibit an intriguing behavior. The backward reaction (retro-addition) can be triggered at work-up depending upon experimental conditions.     

Flash generation of a highly reactive pd catalyst for suzuki-miyaura coupling by using a flow microreactor

Superflash! Flash chemistry enables the use of highly reactive unstable species as catalysts for chemical synthesis. Fast micromixing of a solution of [Pd(OAc)(2) ] and that of tBu(3) P in 1:1 mole ratio gave a solution of a highly reactive unstable species, which was immediately transferred to a vessel by using a flow microreactor, in which Suzuki-Miyaura coupling was conducted.     

Electrodes for Potential Measurements in Aqueous Systems at High Temperatures and Pressures

The measurement of pH, redox potentials, and corrosion potentials at high temperatures and pressures is often desirable for the control and monitoring of industrial processes; e.g., for controlling water chemistry in conventional and nuclear power generators, for process control in the chemical industry, and for monitoring performance in petroleum extraction and refining. Such measurements are also needed for research on the thermodynamics of high-temperature aqueous solutions including those associated with geothermal and hydrothermal reactions. Zirconia electrodes for these purposes are described, and their application is illustrated with examples. While not yet routinely available on a commercial basis, useful versions can be readily fabricated in the laboratory. Some of the pitfalls encountered in making such measurements at elevated temperatures are also discussed because great care is often required to assure that valid and useful data are being obtained.