Continuous flow multistep synthesis of α-functionalized esters via lithium enolate intermediates

Flash chemistry enables high productivity metalation-substitution of 5-alkyltetrazoles

Tetrazoles play a prominent role in medicinal chemistry due to their role as carboxylate bioisosteres but have largely been overlooked as C-H functionalisation substrates. We herein report the development of a high-yielding and general procedure for the heterobenzylic C-H functionalisation of 5-alkyltetrazoles in up to 97% yield under batch conditions using a metalation/electrophilic trapping strategy. Through the use of thermal imaging to identify potentially unsafe exotherms, a continuous flow procedure using a flash chemistry strategy has also been developed, allowing products to be accessed in up to 95% yield. This enabled an extremely high productivity rate of 141 g h-1 to be achieved on an entry-level flow system.

"Snapshot" Trapping of Multiple Transient Azolyllithiums in Batch

Recent developments in flow microreactor technology have allowed the use of transient organolithium compounds that cannot be realized in a batch reactor. However, trapping the transient aryllithiums in a "halogen dance" is still challenging. Herein is reported the trapping of such short-lived azolyllithiums in a batch reactor by developing a finely tuned in situ zincation using zinc halide diamine complexes. The reaction rate is controlled by the appropriate choice of diamine ligand. The reaction is operationally simple and can be performed at 0 °C with high reproducibility on a multigram scale. This method was applicable to a wide range of brominated azoles allowing deprotonative functionalization, which was used for the concise divergent syntheses of both constitutional isomers of biologically active azoles.

Multi-Step Continuous-Flow Organic Synthesis: Opportunities and Challenges

Continuous-flow multi-step synthesis takes the advantages of microchannel flow chemistry and may transform the conventional multi-step organic synthesis by using integrated synthetic systems. To realize the goal, however, innovative chemical methods and techniques are urgently required to meet the significant remaining challenges. In the past few years, by using green reactions, telescoped chemical design, and/or novel in-line separation techniques, major and rapid advancement has been made in this direction. This minireview summarizes the most recent reports (2017-2020) on continuous-flow synthesis of functional molecules. Notably, several complex active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) have been prepared by the continuous-flow approach. Key technologies to the successes and remaining challenges are discussed. These results exemplified the feasibility of using modern continuous-flow chemistry for complex synthetic targets, and bode well for the future development of integrated, automated artificial synthetic systems.

The Concept of Chemical Generators: On-Site On-Demand Production of Hazardous Reagents in Continuous Flow

In recent years, a steadily growing number of chemists, from both academia and industry, have dedicated their research to the development of continuous flow processes performed in milli- or microreactors. The common availability of continuous flow equipment at virtually all scales and affordable cost has additionally impacted this trend. Furthermore, regulatory agencies such as the United States Food and Drug Administration actively encourage continuous manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) with the vision of quality and productivity improvements. That is why the pharmaceutical industry is progressively implementing continuous flow technologies. As a result of the exceptional characteristics of continuous flow reactors such as small reactor volumes and remarkably fast heat and mass transfer, process conditions which need to be avoided in conventional batch syntheses can be safely employed. Thus, continuous operation is particularly advantageous for reactions at high temperatures/pressures (novel process windows) and for ultrafast, exothermic reactions (flash chemistry).

In addition to conditions that are outside of the operation range of conventional stirred tank reactors, reagents possessing a high hazard potential and therefore not amenable to batch processing can be safely utilized (forbidden chemistry). Because of the small reactor volumes, risks in case of a failure are minimized. Such hazardous reagents often are low molecular weight compounds, leading generally to the most atom-, time-, and cost-efficient route toward the desired product. Ideally, they are generated from benign, readily available and cheap precursors within the closed environment of the flow reactor on-site on-demand. By doing so, the transport, storage, and handling of those compounds, which impose a certain safety risk especially on a large scale, are circumvented. This strategy also positively impacts the global supply chain dependency, which can be a severe issue, particularly in times of stricter safety regulations or an epidemic. The concept of the in situ production of a hazardous material is generally referred to as the “generator” of the material. Importantly, in an integrated flow process, multiple modules can be assembled consecutively, allowing not only an in-line purification/separation and quenching of the reagent, but also its downstream conversion to a nonhazardous product.

For the past decade, research in our group has focused on the continuous generation of hazardous reagents using a range of reactor designs and experimental techniques, particularly toward the synthesis of APIs. In this Account, we therefore introduce chemical generator concepts that have been developed in our laboratories for the production of toxic, explosive, and short-lived reagents. We have defined three different classes of generators depending on the reactivity/stability of the reagents, featuring reagents such as Br₂, HCN, peracids, diazomethane (CH₂N₂), or hydrazoic acid (HN₃). The various reactor designs, including in-line membrane separation techniques and real-time process analytical technologies for the generation, purification, and monitoring of those hazardous reagents, and also their downstream transformations are presented. This Account should serve as food for thought to extend the scope of chemical generators for accomplishing more efficient and more economic processes.

Kinetics Studies on a Multicomponent Knoevenagel-Michael Domino Reaction by an Automated Flow Reactor

The optimization of complex chemical reaction systems is often a troublesome and time‐consuming process. The application of modern technologies, including automated reactors and analytics, opens the avenue for generating large data sets on chemical reaction processes in a short period of time. In this work, an automated flow reactor is used to present detailed kinetics and mechanistic studies about an amine‐catalyzed Knoevenagel−Michael domino reaction to yield tetrahydrochromene derivatives. High‐performance monoliths as catalyst supports and online coupled HPLC analysis allow for time‐efficient data generation. We show that the two‐step multicomponent domino reaction does not follow the kinetics of consecutive reaction steps proceeding independently from each other. Instead, the starting materials of both individual reactions compete for the active sites on the heterogeneous catalyst, which lowers the rate constants of both steps. This knowledge was used to implement a more efficient experimental setup which increased the turnover numbers of the catalyst, without adjusting common reaction parameters like temperature, reaction time, and concentrations.

Laboratory of the future: a modular flow platform with multiple integrated PAT tools for multistep reactions

The coupling of a modular microreactor platform, real-time inline analysis by IR and NMR, and online UPLC, leads to efficient optimization of a multistep organolithium transformation to a given product without the need for human intervention.

Mild Homologation of Esters through Continuous Flow Chloroacetate Claisen Reactions

The selective chloromethylenation of functionalized esters using chloroacetic acid (CA) and LiHMDS (HMDS=hexamethyldisilazide) in a continuous-flow setup is reported. This Claisen homologation is for the first time extended to bis-chloromethylenation using dichloroacetic acid (DCA), thus giving access to under-explored α,α'-bis-chloroketones. The use of flow conditions enables efficient generation and reaction of the unstable chloroacetate dianion intermediates, leading to unprecedented mild and scalable reaction conditions at an economical reagent stoichiometry (-10 °C, <1 min, 1.0-2.4 equiv dianion). The clean reaction profiles allow subsequent use of the unpurified crude products, which is demonstrated in the synthesis of various heterocycles of broad interest. Furthermore, we report a novel, catalyst-free substitution of the obtained monochloro ketone products with (hetero)aryl zinc enolates to give valuable 1,4-diketones.