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This application note demonstrates a green photochemical route to the reduction of Nitro compounds. The powerful combination of Vapourtec’s V-3 pump and the UV-150 Photochemical reactor is utilized to deliver the photo catalyst as a slurry and provide precise control over the continuous flow photochemical reaction, even with the short reaction times of less than 1 minute. The TiO2 photo catalyst is safe, cheap and simply removed by filtration. There is also a fascinating comparison of the performance of three different 365 nm light sources; filtered mercury lamp, LED Gen-1 and LED Gen-2. The Gen-2 LED achieves comparable throughput of the mercury lamp while consuming <50% of the power.

Researchers at the University of Southampton and GlaxoSmithKline have used Vapourtec’s R-Series flow chemistry system to synthesise Ketones in Flow by thermal sigmatropic rearrangement of alkoxyalkynes, and their trapping with amines or alcohols to provide amides and esters.

Vapourtec have launched a second generation LED light source (Gen-2) which increases the range of applications for its innovative, continuous flow UV-150 photochemical reactor. Available at two important wavelengths at 365 and 385 nm.

Flow chemistry systems designed and manufactured by Suffolk (UK) based Vapourtec have recently reached the impressive milestone of having been cited in 150 peer review publications. By way of a comparison Vapourtec's two closest competitors in flow chemistry technology have been mentioned in 51 and 40 publications respectively.

Using the Vapourtec R-Series flow chemistry system researchers from the Max-Planck Institute of Chemistry and Biology have developed an approach to deliver a range of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API’s) in a continuous process. The concept uses a non-iterative chemical assembly system that uses a range of flow chemistry modules that can be linked and interchanged to gain access to an increased chemical space.

Using the Vapourtec E-Series flow chemistry system researchers from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen have shown a procedure for functionalizing a range of heterocycles and various sensitive acrylates using the strong, non-nucleotide Knochel-Hauser base TMPMgCl.LiCl and the subsequent quenching with various electrophiles. The ability of the advanced Vapourtec V-3 pump to continuously process reagents of this type allows for the multi-gram scale-up of these reactions previously limited to small scale.

This article will outline a few of the most common types of photochemical reaction and analyse the key features of a reactor, considering the light sources currently available. Finally, it will showcase just a few of the many real world applications for photochemistry.

Recently published research into the production of Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) utilising Vapourtec flow chemistry technology has revealed the substantial benefits of adopting a continuous flow process over the traditional batch approach. MOFs exhibit similar structures to naturally occurring Zeolites however their properties can be synthetically tuned providing a multitude of potential industrial applications including the storage, separation and triggered release of gases, drug molecules or toxins due to the porous nature of MOF compounds.