Abstract

Scalable Flow Chemistry: A Flexible Tool for the Research, Development and Production of Pharmaceuticals, Fine & Specialty Chemicals

Charlotte Wiles, Chief Executive Officer, Chemtrix BV

Initially viewed at the turn of the Century as a modern tool for academic chemist, the past seven years have seen a step change with significant industrial uptake of micro and meso reactor systems used to produce material at a large scale. This has led to companies publicising implementation of this technology all along the development chain with advantages highlighted at the research, pilot and production scale. Proven benefits of this technology include access to novel processing windows, increased process safety and reduced costs. Looking to how reactions are conventionally performed, they are often executed under non-ideal conditions in order to gain control over the process; this can include the use of large volumes of solvent, cryogenic conditions, the use of stoichiometric reagents and long dosing/reaction times. Subsequent product isolation is then time consuming and results in the generation of large quantities of waste. Time is then lost when a target is identified as the synthetic route must be redeveloped in order to be suitable for up-scaling to the target production quantities. Compared to stirred vessels, continuous flow reactors have significant processing advantages which include improved thermal management, enhanced mixing control and access to larger operating windows enabling the development of safe, efficient, robust and sustainable production processes – with benefits not only harnessed for the reaction steps, but also in cost and waste reduction when considering that increased product purities require less downstream processing. Applicable at both the lab and production scale, continuous flow reactor technology therefore has the ability to benefit both early stage researchers and process development chemists/engineers in the exploitation of sustainable synthetic processes. When considering implementation at the production scale, it is imperative that process monitoring is implemented in order to determine if the process is in a state