Flow Chemistry

New discoveries and technological advances have opened up countless opportunities to facilitate synthetic organic chemistry in flow systems. Continuous-flow reactors have been increasingly used in synthetic organic chemistry to facilitate chemistries which are otherwise difficult to carry out. This includes gas-liquid reactions, photochemical and electrochemical transformations, and chemistries utilizing hazardous compounds, extreme reaction conditions and multistep reaction sequences. Underlying all these advances are chemical engineering principles that enable chemical processes to be carried out under perfectly controlled reaction conditions. The group has established a research program to contribute to this rapid changing field. We aim to develop novel flow methods which facilitate organic synthetic chemistries driven by green activation modes, such as photochemistry and electrochemistry. Hereto, the group will utilize mechanistic and empirical approaches which combines synthetic organic, organometallic chemistry and chemical engineering principles. The goal is to develop new methods with simple, inexpensive reagents which can be used to create organic molecules with a minimum of synthetic steps. The focus here lies on the development of more sustainable processes to lower the E-factor. Currently the E-factor lies between 25-100 for pharmaceutical processes, this value has to go down to 1-10.

New discoveries and technological advances have opened up countless opportunities to facilitate synthetic organic chemistry in flow systems. Continuous-flow reactors have been increasingly used in synthetic organic chemistry to facilitate chemistries which are otherwise difficult to carry out. This includes gas-liquid reactions, photochemical and electrochemical transformations, and chemistries utilizing hazardous compounds, extreme reaction conditions and multistep reaction sequences. Underlying all these advances are chemical engineering principles that enable chemical processes to be carried out under perfectly controlled reaction conditions. The group has established a research program to contribute to this rapid changing field. We aim to develop novel flow methods which facilitate organic synthetic chemistries driven by green activation modes, such as photochemistry and electrochemistry. Hereto, the group will utilize mechanistic and empirical approaches which combines synthetic organic, organometallic chemistry and chemical engineering principles. The goal is to develop new methods with simple, inexpensive reagents which can be used to create organic molecules with a minimum of synthetic steps. The focus here lies on the development of more sustainable processes to lower the E-factor. Currently the E-factor lies between 25-100 for pharmaceutical processes, this value has to go down to 1-10.