Herein we present a 200 mm × 3 mm Ø i silicon carbide (SiC) tube reactor for use in a commercially available microwave heated continuous-flow system. The SiC flow reactor enables palladium(0)-catalyzed reactions that, due to precipitation and subsequent hot spot formation, often followed by reactor failure, are unsuitable to conduct in standard microwave-transparent borosilicate glass reactors. We report continuous-flow protocols for the Mizoroki−Heck reaction (10 examples, 81−86% yield) as well as the Suzuki−Miyaura cross-coupling (14 examples, 70−87% yield), showing the utility of the SiC reactor. Furthermore, we performed a scale-out of the NSAID biphenylacetic acid, achieving outputs of 14 mmol/h of the Suzuki−Miyaura reaction, and a 72% overall yield over three steps. The SiC reactor enabled fast and efficient temperature control, high robustness, and easy maintenance.
■ INTRODUCTIONControlled microwave (MW) heating has found increased use in small-scale batch synthesis, and dedicated MW instruments are now routinely used in many research laboratories and pharmaceutical companies. 1−5 The advantages associated with MW heating are commonly attributed to the efficient direct manner of heating 6 as the reaction mixture itself will be rapidly heated, rather than the vessel, which is the case for classical heating. 7−9 Most importantly, MW instrumentation designed for organic chemistry applications has provided a safe and convenient way to perform small-scale batch chemistry at elevated temperatures and pressures.Continuous-flow (CF) chemistry is another technology which has attracted considerable interest in the last few decades due to safety, handling, and scale-up advantages. 10,11 Rather than heating a large volume of a reaction mixture in batch mode, a small volume will be heated in a CF equipment, which greatly improves safety. 4,10,11 The predominant mode of heating used in CF systems has been conductive heating. However, the combination of MW heating and CF has attracted interest, 8,12−23 and we have reported on a purposebuilt system combining CF with a nonresonant MW applicator for heating. 24−27 The most prominent feature of this system is a very uniformly distributed axial MW field, providing homogeneous heating of the reaction mixture when using 200 mm × 2−10 mm Ø i microwave transparent borosilicate tube reactors. In addition the tubular wide bore reactor design prevents clogging and facilitates physical cleaning of the reactor. 28 Palladium(0)-catalyzed reactions such as the Mizoroki−Heck reaction 29−31 and the Suzuki−Miyaura coupling reaction 32 have found great use during the last few decades. Furthermore, these cross-couplings have successfully been carried out both with MW heating 33−36 and by using CF equipment. 37 Thus, the importance of cross-coupling methods prompted us to investigate the Mizoroki−Heck and Suzuki−Miyaura reactions under MW heated CF conditions and whether it would possible to accelerate these reactions in order to achieve full conversions within minutes.One foreseeable iss...