(130a) Screening and Optimization in a Microreactor Platform

The variety of chemical reactions performed in continuous flow microreactors is steadily increasing. Important advantages over conventional batchwise reactions are a generally enhanced control over selectivity and significant suppression of side product formation as a result of improved mass and heat transfer processes. An additional valuable feature of microreactor technology is that due to the small dimensions reaction screening can be efficiently carried out without using large amounts of substrate or catalyst. These advantages have been substantiated over the past decade with a growing amount of examples[1-4]. We have developed a microreactor platform which is capable of acquiring large numbers of data points in a single day, consuming only small amounts of reaction fluid (typically 5 mL). In order to make the data acquisition process as efficient as possible, we have applied the principles of Design of Experiments (DOE), more specifically D-optimal design[5] to optimize industrially relevant reactions.

[1] G. N. Doku, S. J. Haswell, T. McCreedy, G. M. Greenway, Analyst 2001, 126, 14.

[2] K. Geyer, J. D. C. Codee, P. H. Seeberger, Chemistry-a European Journal 2006, 12, 8434.

[3] V. Hessel, P. Lob, H. Lowe, Current Organic Chemistry 2005, 9, 765.

[4] P. Watts, C. Wiles, Chemical Communications 2007, 443.

[5] P. F. de Aguiar, B. Bourguignon et al., Chemom. Intell. Lab. Syst., 1995, 199-210.