Inductive heating with magnetic materials inside flow reactors

Superparamagnetic nanoparticles coated with silica gel or alternatively steel beads are new fixed-bed materials for flow reactors that efficiently heat reaction mixtures in an inductive field under flow conditions. The scope and limitations of these novel heating materials are investigated in comparison with conventional and microwave heating. The results suggest that inductive heating can be compared to microwave heating with respect to rate acceleration. It is also demonstrated that a very large diversity of different reactions can be performed under flow conditions by using inductively heated flow reactors. These include transfer hydrogenations, heterocyclic condensations, pericyclic reactions, organometallic reactions, multicomponent reactions, reductive cyclizations, homogeneous and heterogeneous transition-metal catalysis. Silica-coated iron oxide nanoparticles are stable under many chemical conditions and the silica shell could be utilized for further functionalization with Pd nanoparticles, rendering catalytically active heatable iron oxide particles.