(368ce) Scaling Organic Electrosynthesis — the Crucial Interplay between Mechanism and Mass Transport

Research Interests: Reactor Engineering, Scale-up, Process Engineering, Flow Chemistry, Electrochemistry

Recent progress in the field of organic electrosynthesis shows promise to develop chemistries of pharmaceutical interest that utilize the electron as a “green” reagent. However, the advances made in organic electrosynthesis have not yet been met by equal progress in their implementation at larger scale, hampering their use in the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Presently, most organic electrosynthesis reactions are studied in simple parallel plate or batch cells using small surface area electrodes. The flow profile and mass transport behavior of these cells, however, does not generally make them appropriate for synthesis at scale. Over the past century, significant developments in electrochemical reactor engineering have led to improved reactor designs, but these have found only limited application to modern organic electrosynthesis.

In this talk, I will discuss the performance of advanced electrochemical reactor designs towards contemporary organic electrosynthesis. Our results demonstrate that gaining independent control over the flow profile and mass transport in electrochemical reactors provides a novel, and thus far unexplored avenue for controlling the selectivity observed in electrosynthesis reactions. Using optimized reactor designs and reaction conditions, we reach unprecedented selectivity and rates for organic electrosynthesis, approaching the multi-kg per day rates necessary for early-stage clinical trials.

Our work provides a generalizable framework for understanding the interaction between fundamental reaction kinetics, reactor geometry, and mass transport to control the rate and selectivity of pharmaceutical organic electrosynthesis at scale.