Delineating a green, catalyst free synthesis of a popular nutraceutical methylsulfonylmethane (MSM) in continuous flow

• Chinmay A. Shukla^a
• Bantu Udaykumar^a
• Y. Saisivanarayana^a
• Arsh Ismaili^a
• T Haripriya^a
• Manish M. Shinde^b
• Srinivasan Neti^c
• Maheshkumar Uppada^a
• Vishnuvardhana Eda^c
• Saikat Sen^c
• Srinivas Oruganti^a,b,c

• ^a10X Chemical Process Automation Laboratory, Dr. Reddy’s Institute of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad Campus, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, 500 046, India
• ^bFlow Chemistry Technology Hub, Dr. Reddy’s Institute of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad Campus, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, 500 046, India
• ^cCentre for Process Research and Innovation, Dr. Reddy’s Institute of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad Campus, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, 500 046, India

A green and potentially scalable continuous flow synthesis of a popular sulfone containing nutraceutical, methylsulfonylmethane (MSM), has been demonstrated in a Vapourtec tubular reactor platform via metal catalyst-free hydrogen peroxide mediated oxidation of dimethyl sulfoxide. Under optimized conditions, MSM could be obtained in >85% isolated yield and purity >99% with a productivity of 23.6 g/h simply by cooling the reaction mixture collected at the output.

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