Flow chemistry experiments in the undergraduate teaching laboratory: synthesis of diazo dyes and disulfides

Abstract

By embedding flow technology in the early phases of academic education, students are exposed to both the theoretical and practical aspects of this modern and widely-used technology. Herein, two laboratory flow experiments are described which have been carried out by first year undergraduate students at Eindhoven University of Technology. The experiments are designed to be relatively risk-free and they exploit widely available equipment and cheap capillary flow reactors. The experiments allow students to develop a hands-on understanding of continuous processing and gives them insights in both organic chemistry and chemical engineering. Furthermore, they learn about the benefits of microreactors, continuous processing, multistep reaction sequences and multiphase chemistry. Undoubtedly, such skills are highly valued in both academia and the chemical industry.

A Continuous‐Flow Route to Enantioenriched 3‐Substituted‐3‐Hydroxyoxindoles: Organocatalytic Aldol Reactions of Isatin with Acetone

“…The residence time of the reactor was controlled by changing the flow rate of the dual syringe pump. Under steady‐state conditions [9,11,13,52] (see Figure S2 in the supporting information), the product was collected in a vial continuously purged with nitrogen to evaporate the acetone as shown in Scheme 1.…”

“…This makes them more efficient in handling exothermic reactions and potentially hazardous reagents thereby providing greener alternatives for synthetic transformations [7–9] . As adopting environmentally benign processes is increasingly becoming a central priority in fine chemical production, more pharmaceutical companies and researchers are becoming interested in second generation research programmes targeted at improving existing processes through the application of flow chemistry [10–13] …”

Enabling Technology for Supramolecular Chemistry

“…If these technologies are to become mainstream, then training the chemists of the future will become vital. Examples of pre-designed flow chemistry experiments for potential use in undergraduate teaching laboratories ( König et al, 2013 ; Leibfarth et al, 2018 ; Kuijpers et al, 2021 ) represent the acknowledgement of a changing skill set required of graduate chemists.…”

Efficient Synthesis of Symmetrical and Unsymmetrical Disulfides Using a Continuous Flow Method

“…A continuous flow chemistry system has many attractive features that can produce more efficient synthesis over a batch system, [12] offering the benefits of high degrees of control [13] over process parameters including temperature, pressure, minimizing the volume of reaction, and enhancing the mixing of sample and reagent. [14,15] Residence time is a key factor for controlling the yield and selectivity in a microreactor, [16][17][18] as in the context of producing very unstable and highly reactive intermediates, flow microreactors make an excellent replacement [19][20][21][22] to conventional batch reaction methods.…”