Abstract

Continuous flow process provides a potential alternative to batch synthesis because of its inherent advantages such as very efficient heat exchange, high batch to batch reproducibility, fast mixing, high throughput, safety, and the ability to do multistep telescoping synthesis.  Due to these advantages, these processes have been projected as processes for chemical factories of tomorrow. Large-scale manufacturing of high-energy materials requires very fast mass and heat transfer and hence suffer from the tendency for run-away reaction. Traditionally, these issues are resolved by diluting the process that leads to increase in waste-generation.  Continuous flow provides an attractive alternative wherein process parameters can be controlled without diluting the process. This presentation will provide an overview tutorial in this important area followed by its applications in the area of Conjugated Polymers or Synthetic Metals, nanoparticles and other materials.  Conjugated Polymers have evolved from being academic curiosity to being an important commercial material over the last few decades. However, large-scale syntheses with controlled molecular properties still remain a major challenge in this area.  In this direction, continuous flow process provides a potential alternative to batch synthesis for reproducible large-scale process for the syntheses of conjugated polymers with control over the molecular design parameters. In this presentation, I will discuss some of our recent results in these directions with particular emphasis on the application of Kumada Coupling for the large scale synthesis of Defect Free Poly(3-hexylthiophene) and Poly(3,4-Propylenedioxythiophene-dialkyl) with precise control over critical molecular design parameters. I will also present some of our recent results on the application of continuous flow process for the synthesis of conjugated polymer nanofibers, silica nanoparticles etc.