Chemical synthesis in micro reactors: How small is required?

ORGN 24

Paul Watts, P.Watts@hull.ac.uk, Department of Chemistry, University of Hull, Cottingham Road, Hull, HU6 7RX, United Kingdom
Drug discovery is a very time consuming process, with one of the slowest steps being the synthesis and purification of candidates. Several companies have acknowledged that the miniaturisation of chemical reactors offer many advantages of relevance to the pharmaceutical industry, who are searching for high throughput methods of producing products.

In this presentation various chemical reactions of pharmaceutical interest will be used to illustrate the advantages that micro reactors offer for the rapid optimisation of reactions, in which the product is typically produced in higher yield and purity. It will be illustrated that compounds may be prepared and purified within an integrated system, using electrophoretic separation.

The use of solid supported reagents adds even greater diversity to the range of reactions that may be achieved within such systems. It will be demonstrated that the dimensions of reactors may be increased in size while maintaining the classic advantages associated with miniaturisation.