An affordable, programmable and interactive continuous flow Photoreactor setup for undergraduate organic synthetic teaching labs

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Domański, M. and Marcou, Gilles and Barham, Joshua P. (2024) An affordable, programmable and interactive continuous flow Photoreactor setup for undergraduate organic synthetic teaching labs. Journal of Flow Chemistry, 14 (1). pp. 349-355. ISSN 2063-0212 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s41981-023-00306-9)

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Abstract

Photochemistry and continuous flow chemistry are synthetic technology platforms that have witnessed an increasing uptake by chemical industries interested in complex organic molecule synthesis. Simultaneously, automation and data science are prominent targets in organic synthesis and in chemical industries for streamlined workflows, meaning hardware-software interaction between operators and devices is crucial. Since undergraduate teaching labs at public-funded research Universities typically (i) lack budget for commercial, user-friendly continuous flow reactors and (ii) do not teach synthetic chemists how to program or interact with reactors, there is a disparity between the skills undergraduates are equipped with and the skills that future industries need. We report a teaching lab project where undergraduates assemble, program and execute a continuous flow photoreactor to realize a multigram-scale photoredox catalyzed oxidation reaction. A palladium-free synthetic access to the starting material was described to further cut costs. Not only does this exercise introduce useful skills in reactor design, programming and wet chemistry (both photochemical and thermal, both batch and flow), it also accommodates both the typical budget and afternoon timeslot (2-3 h) of a teaching lab and can be followed by thin-layer chromatography/color changes without necessarily requiring access to NMR facilities. Graphical abstract: (Figure presented.)

ORCID iDs

Domański, M., Marcou, Gilles and Barham, Joshua P. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1675-9399;
  • Item type:Article
    ID code:92111
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    March 2024
    Published
    18 January 2024
    Published Online
    26 December 2023
    Accepted
    Subjects:UNSPECIFIED
    Department:Faculty of Science > Pure and Applied Chemistry
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:20 Feb 2025 11:26
    Last modified:20 Feb 2025 11:26
    Related URLs:
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/92111
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