A New Enabling Technology for Convenient Laboratory Scale Continuous Flow Processing at Low Temperatures

In Situ Quench Reactions of Enantioenriched Secondary Alkyllithium Reagents in Batch and Continuous Flow Using an I/Li-Exchange

We report a practical in situ quench (ISQ) procedure involving the generation of chiral secondary alkyllithiums from secondary alkyl iodides (including functionalized iodides bearing an ester or a nitrile) in the presence of various electrophiles such as aldehydes, ketones, Weinreb amides, isocyanates, sulfides, or boronates. This ISQ-reaction allowed the preparation of a broad range of optically enriched ketones, alcohols, amides, sulfides and boronic acid esters in typically 90-98 % ee. Remarkably, these reactions were performed at -78 °C or -40 °C in batch. A continuous flow set-up permitted reaction temperatures between -20 °C and 0 °C and allowed a scale-up up to a 40-fold without further optimization.

Etherification of Fluoroarenes with Alkoxyboronic Acid Pinacol Esters via C-F Bond Cleavage

Potassium-base-mediated defluoroetherification of aryl and heteroaryl fluorides with alkoxyboronic acid pinacol esters under transition-metal-free conditions is reported. This protocol efficiently and safely provides a wide variety of aryl ethers in high yields without using metal catalysts, specific ligands, and harsh conditions to selectively forge C_sp2-O bonds via the C_sp2-F cleavage. This method can be applied to the late-stage etherification of structurally complex C_sp2-fluorides and bioactive alcohols, such as β-estradiol, calciferol, and tocopherol.

Flow Chemistry in Contemporary Chemical Sciences: A Real Variety of Its Applications

Flow chemistry is an area of contemporary chemistry exploiting the hydrodynamic conditions of flowing liquids to provide particular environments for chemical reactions. These particular conditions of enhanced and strictly regulated transport of reagents, improved interface contacts, intensification of heat transfer, and safe operation with hazardous chemicals can be utilized in chemical synthesis, both for mechanization and automation of analytical procedures, and for the investigation of the kinetics of ultrafast reactions. Such methods are developed for more than half a century. In the field of chemical synthesis, they are used mostly in pharmaceutical chemistry for efficient syntheses of small amounts of active substances. In analytical chemistry, flow measuring systems are designed for environmental applications and industrial monitoring, as well as medical and pharmaceutical analysis, providing essential enhancement of the yield of analyses and precision of analytical determinations. The main concept of this review is to show the overlapping of development trends in the design of instrumentation and various ways of the utilization of specificity of chemical operations under flow conditions, especially for synthetic and analytical purposes, with a simultaneous presentation of the still rather limited correspondence between these two main areas of flow chemistry.

Generation and Reaction of Functional Alkyllithiums by Using Microreactors and Their Application to Heterotelechelic Polymer Synthesis

Flow microreactors enabled the successful generation of various functional alkyllithiums containing electrophilic functional groups, as well as the use of these alkyllithiums in subsequent reactions. The high reactivity of these series of reactions could be achieved by the extremely accurate and selective control of residence time. Moreover, integrated flow microreactor systems could be used to successfully synthesize heterotelechelic polymers with two functionalities, one at each end, via a process involving controlled anionic polymerization initiated by functional alkyllithium compounds, followed by trapping reactions with difunctional electrophiles.

Norbornadiene-functionalized triazatriangulenium and trioxatriangulenium platforms

Triazatriangulenium (TATA) and trioxatriangulenium (TOTA) ions are particularly suited systems to mount functional molecules onto atomically flat surfaces such as Au(111). The TATA and TOTA units serve as platforms that absorb onto the surface and form ordered monolayers, while the functional groups are protruding upright and freestanding from the central carbon atoms. Azobenzene derivatized TATA’s are known to exhibit extremely fast cis→trans isomerization on metal surfaces, via a peculiar non-adiabatic singlet→triplet→singlet mechanism. We now prepared norbornadienes (NBD) and quadricyclanes (QC) attached to TATA and TOTA platforms which can be used to check if these accelerated rates and the spin change mechanism also apply to [2 + 2] cycloreversions (QC→NBD).

Anionic Polymerization Using Flow Microreactors

Flow microreactors are expected to make a revolutionary change in chemical synthesis involving various fields of polymer synthesis. In fact, extensive flow microreactor studies have opened up new possibilities in polymer chemistry including cationic polymerization, anionic polymerization, radical polymerization, coordination polymerization, polycondensation and ring-opening polymerization. This review provides an overview of flow microreactors in anionic polymerization and their various applications.

Decarboxylative Suzuki–Miyaura coupling of (hetero)aromatic carboxylic acids using iodine as the terminal oxidant

A novel methodology for the decarboxylative Suzuki–Miyaura-type coupling of carboxylic acids with arylboronic acids has been developed.

A Practical and General Amidation Method from Isocyanates Enabled by Flow Technology

The addition of carbon nucleophiles to isocyanates represents a conceptually flexible and efficient approach to the preparation of amides. This general synthetic strategy has, however, been relatively underutilized owing to narrow substrate tolerance and the requirement for less favourable reaction conditions. Herein, we disclose a high-yielding, mass-efficient, and scalable method with appreciable functional group tolerance for the formation of amides by reaction of Grignard reagents with isocyanates. Through the application of flow chemistry and the use of substoichiometric amounts of CuBr₂ , this process has been developed to encompass a broad range of substrates, including reactants found to be incompatible with previously published procedures.

Influence of fluorine substituents on the properties of phenylboronic compounds

Rapid development of research on the chemistry of boronic acids is connected with their applications in organic synthesis, analytical chemistry, materials’ chemistry, biology and medicine. In many applications Lewis acidity of boron atoms plays an important role. Special group of arylboronic acids are fluoro-substituted compounds, in which the electron withdrawing character of fluorine atoms influences their properties. The present paper deals with fluoro-substituted boronic acids and their derivatives: esters, benzoxaboroles and boroxines. Properties of these compounds, i.e. acidity, hydrolytic stability, structures in crystals and in solution as well as spectroscopic properties are discussed. In the next part examples of important applications are given.

Barbier Continuous Flow Preparation and Reactions of Carbamoyllithiums for Nucleophilic Amidation

An ambient temperature continuous flow method for nucleophilic amidation and thioamidation is described. Deprotonation of formamides by lithium diisopropylamine (LDA) affords carbamoyllithium intermediates that are quenched in situ with various electrophiles such as ketones, allyl bromides, Weinreb and morpholino amides. The nature of the reactive lithium intermediates and the thermodynamics of the metalation were further investigated by ab initio calculations and kinetic experiments.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Flow Chemistry ∥

Flow chemistry involves the use of channels or tubing to conduct a reaction in a continuous stream rather than in a flask. Flow equipment provides chemists with unique control over reaction parameters enhancing reactivity or in some cases enabling new reactions. This relatively young technology has received a remarkable amount of attention in the past decade with many reports on what can be done in flow. Until recently, however, the question, "Should we do this in flow?" has merely been an afterthought. This review introduces readers to the basic principles and fundamentals of flow chemistry and critically discusses recent flow chemistry accounts.

Continuous-Flow Synthesis of Biaryls by Negishi Cross-Coupling of Fluoro- and Trifluoromethyl-Substituted (Hetero)arenes

A continuous-flow method for the regioselective arylation of fluoroarenes and fluoropyridines has been developed. The telescoped procedure reported here consists of a three-step metalation, zincation, and Negishi cross-coupling sequence, providing efficient access to a variety of functionalized 2-fluorobiaryl products. Precise temperature control of the metalation step, made possible by continuous-flow technology, allowed for the efficient preparation of the arylated products in high yields and short residence times. Additionally, several examples of the regioselective arylation of benzotrifluoride derivatives are also provided.

Machine-Assisted Organic Synthesis

In this Review we describe how the advent of machines is impacting on organic synthesis programs, with particular emphasis on the practical issues associated with the design of chemical reactors. In the rapidly changing, multivariant environment of the research laboratory, equipment needs to be modular to accommodate high and low temperatures and pressures, enzymes, multiphase systems, slurries, gases, and organometallic compounds. Additional technologies have been developed to facilitate more specialized reaction techniques such as electrochemical and photochemical methods. All of these areas create both opportunities and challenges during adoption as enabling technologies.

Strategic Application of Residence-Time Control in Continuous-Flow Reactors

As a sustainable alternative for conventional batch-based synthetic techniques, the concept of continuous-flow processing has emerged in the synthesis of fine chemicals. Systematic tuning of the residence time, a key parameter of continuous-reaction technology, can govern the outcome of a chemical reaction by determining the reaction rate and the conversion and by influencing the product selectivity. This review furnishes a brief insight into flow reactions in which high chemo- and/or stereoselectivity can be attained by strategic residence-time control and illustrates the importance of the residence time as a crucial parameter in sustainable method development. Such a fine reaction control cannot be performed in conventional batch reaction set-ups.

Flow synthesis of ethyl isocyanoacetate enabling the telescoped synthesis of 1,2,4-triazoles and pyrrolo-[1,2-c]pyrimidines

The efficient flow synthesis of important heterocyclic building blocks based on the 1,2,4-triazole and pyrrolo[1,2-c]pyrimidine scaffold has been achieved.

Synthesis of riboflavines, quinoxalinones and benzodiazepines through chemoselective flow based hydrogenations

Robust chemical routes towards valuable bioactive entities such as riboflavines, quinoxalinones and benzodiazepines are described. These make use of modern flow hydrogenation protocols enabling the chemoselective reduction of nitro group containing building blocks in order to rapidly generate the desired amine intermediates in situ. In order to exploit the benefits of continuous processing the individual steps were transformed into a telescoped flow process delivering selected benzodiazepine products on scales of 50 mmol and 120 mmol respectively.

Continuous flow magnesiation of functionalized heterocycles and acrylates with TMPMgCl⋅LiCl

A flow procedure for the metalation of functionalized heterocycles (pyridines, pyrimidines, thiophenes, and thiazoles) and various acrylates using the strong, non-nucleophilic base TMPMgCl⋅LiCl is reported. The flow conditions allow the magnesiations to be performed under more convenient conditions than the comparable batch reactions, which often require cryogenic temperatures and long reaction times. Moreover, the flow reactions are directly scalable without further optimization. Metalation under flow conditions also allows magnesiations that did not produce the desired products under batch conditions, such as the magnesiation of sensitive acrylic derivatives. The magnesiated species are subsequently quenched with various electrophiles, thereby introducing a broad range of functionalities.