Abstract

The SpaceFlow Project: What Flow Chemistry can Contribute to Space Research

Ferenc Darvas, Chairman, Flow Chemistry Society

Modern space research triggered by long term goal of humans, like space travel to Mars and other planets, or to explore rare minerals from asteroids, needs automated, highly robotized chemistry facilities with flexible setups. The SpaceFlow Consortium, which has been organized under the auspices of the Flow Chemistry Society, is facing three key challenges of contemporary space research: a) Creating a standardized and flexible space laboratory with a capability for a wide range of chemistry discovery also coupled with plug and play “drug on demand” chemistry systems where pharmaceuticals are synthesized, analyzed, purified, and formulated. b) Utilizing the extreme conditions of space on different chemical processes for discovering new routes to novel molecules or more efficient chemical applications. c) Converting human biological waste materials to reusable chemicals in order to sustain human life. In the lecture, concepts and efforts to progress along the key challenges are summarized together with our own research of using tunneling effect for developing novel reactions and novel scaffolds suitable for building up libraries which might have high importance for the pharmaceutical and agrochemical research.