Kappe, C. O. Institute of Chemistry, University of Graz, Heinrichstrasse 28, Graz, Austria

GOING WITH THE FLOW – THE USE OF CONTINUOUS PROCESSING IN ORGANIC SYNTHESIS

Continuous flow processes form the basis of the petrochemical and bulk chemicals industry where strong competition, stringent environmental and safety regulations, and low profit margins drive the need for highly performing, cost effective, safe and atom efficient chemical operations. In contrast to the commodity chemical industry, the fine chemical industry primarily relies on its existing infrastructure of multipurpose batch or semi-batch reactors. Fine chemicals, such as drug substances and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), are generally considerably more complex than commodity chemicals and usually require numerous, widely diverse reaction steps for their synthesis. Flow technology has considerable advantages in mass- and heat transfer, safety and ease of scale-up, when compared to traditional batch reactions. Furthermore, hazardous chemistries such as highly exothermic reactions, or those involving unstable or toxic intermediates can be operated safely in flow, whereby this technology acts as a powerful route-enabler. In this lecture, contributions from our research group in the field of continuous flow processing in the areas shown in Figure 1 will be highlighted.¹

1. Review: Gutmann, B.; Cantillo, D.; Kappe, C. O. Continuous-Flow Technology—A Tool for the Safe Manufacturing of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 6688-6729