Abstract

Go With the Flow, or Not? The Basic Principles of Flow Chemistry for Synthetic Organic Chemists

Timothy Noël, Professor, University of Amsterdam

Flow chemistry is typically used to enable challenging reactions which are difficult to carry out in conventional batch equipment. Consequently, the use of continuous-flow reactors for applications in organometallic and organic chemistry has witnessed a spectacular increase in interest from the chemistry community in the last decade. However, flow chemistry is more than just pumping reagents through a capillary and the engineering behind the observed phenomena can help to exploit the technology’s full potential. Here, we aim to give a concise overview of the most important engineering aspects associated with flow chemistry, such as mixing, heat transfer, multistep reaction sequences, etc. In addition, we will give suitable chemistry examples where appropriate to demonstrate the impact of flow processing on synthetic organic chemistry.