Organic Electrochemistry in Extended Channel Flow Reactors
Katherine Jolley, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Leeds
The development of sustainable methods for organic synthesis is an
important field within chemical research. One approach to the
development of such processes is the use of reagentless techniques such
as use of light, heat or electricity to drive chemical reactions.
Although widely studied for over 150 years, the uptake of
electrochemical processes within organic synthesis is relatively low.
This is in part because electrosynthesis has not been available in a
convenient to use format with batch processes often requiring long
reaction times for low productivity. The recent development of high
throughput electrochemical flow reactors however, provides a productive,
accessible approach to the development and use of organic
electrochemical trasformations. Within the Brown group, a series of
extended channel length electrochemical flow reactors have been
developed allowing high productivity and scalability for a range of
reactions including methoxylation, amidation, esterification and TEMPO
catalysed alcohol oxidation. More recently we have reported the
continuous electrochemical deprotection of p-methoxybenzyl (PMB)
protected alcohols,4 an efficient, scalable process which avoids use of
toxic reagents such as DDQ or CAN and obtained productivities of >50
mmol/hour of deprotected alcohol. Sustainability metrics for the process
showed improved efficiency compared to existing literature procedures.
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