Flow Chemistry

Flow Chemistry, sometimes referred to as plug flow, microchemistry or continuous flow chemistry has emerged as a new and productive technology for R&D chemists. It offers the chemist a new tool to speed discovery and development.

Flow chemistry has many useful benefits over conventional batch techniques. It is a complementary technology, and chemists can use it as necessary without major change to their work. Syrris produce two flow chemistry systems, AFRICA and FRX which can be used to access all the advantages listed below.

Advantages of flow reactors include:

Control
The system gives excellent, repeatable control of reaction conditions, i.e. time, temperature, equivalents of reagents and mixing, and allows exothermic reactions to be performed without the need for cryogenics.

Increased reaction rate
By easily pressurising the system (e.g. to 300psi), reactions can be superheated to give reaction rates hundreds of times faster than in reflux. This gives microwave-like rate enhancement without the problems associated with scaling up microwave-based reactions.

Integrated synthesis and analysis
Reactions flow immediately from the reactor to the HPLC via a sampler and dilutor that takes a 5ul sample from the reaction mixture and dilutes it before flowing it onto the HPLC.

Automation
The reaction and analysis conditions are simply defined in the software and the system runs a variety of reaction conditions unattended.

Efficiency
The system operates with low raw materials consumption when working in method development mode e.g. 100ul per reaction.

Range of use
The system can be used for synthesis, reaction optimisation or for libraries, operating from 1mg per experiment to 200g per day. For example to optimise a reaction, a number of reactions can be performed using a structured exploration of parameters such as time, temperature and stoichiometry. The parameters to be used can be generated by Design of Experiment (DoE) software and imported into the AFRICA software. Once optimised, the preferred conditions can be used to generate larger amounts of material or to run a library. Click here for examples of chemistry performed in flow.

Scalability
AFRICA and FRX give good process scalability from discovery through to development and ultimately to manufacture.

Closed loop
The system has potential for closed loop reaction optimisation in the medium term and closed loop drug discovery in the long term.