Reactors and Reproducibility: Advancing Electrochemistry for Organic Synthesis

有机合成使人类能够开发治疗疾病的分子，有效地种植农作物，用创新的燃料和润滑剂为我们的家园供电，并开发现代生活必不可少的材料和塑料。氧化还原反应是一类重要的有机转化，其中电子被添加或从分子中移除以产生化学反应。该反应通常通过添加反应性氧化还原试剂来驱动，这产生了大量的废物，这些废物通常是有毒的并且处置起来昂贵。电化学是有机合成的一种使能技术，因为它通过在浸没在反应溶液中的电极表面直接转移电子来取代这些试剂。这种技术有两个主要优点。首先是产生更少的废物或根本没有废物，并且需要更少的能源，从而提供更有效和环境可持续的方式来进行氧化还原反应。第二是可以容易地调节所施加的电势或驱动力，这提供了更大的选择性、新的反应性、更高的官能团耐受性和更少的不期望的副产物。在提供效率、选择性和环境益处的同时，与标准合成有机反应相比，存在与电化学反应相关的实际挑战。使用该技术的最大挑战通常与设置有关，这些设置可能复杂，昂贵，不适合并行化/反应开发，并且通常导致重现性差。因此，迫切需要解决这些问题，以推动该领域的发展。在这个项目中，我们将开发新的反应器系统，以帮助反应发展的每个阶段，即：发现，优化，传播和复制。我们将专注于增材制造（3D打印）作为一种廉价，快速和灵活的原型工具，以生成可访问，廉价，重要的是，高度可重复的有机合成系统。我们将为反应器开发新材料、创新设计、打印程序和优化工具，这些将用于开发一些合成转化，我们有初步数据，但需要新的反应器系统进一步发展。我们还将进行基础研究，以进一步了解目前困扰电化学合成的重现性问题。具体来说，高层次的目标是a）发明一种筛选系统的有机电化学，B）解决重现性问题，c）创建超级细胞：下一代的反应器的有机电化学。这种3D打印的有机电化学方法将提高开发和复制新型有机转化的速度和容易性，确保电化学能够发挥其高效和可持续化学反应的潜力。该项目将促进该技术在有机合成中的广泛采用，并为工业界、学术界和整个社会带来基本的理解、环境和经济效益。

Organic synthesis allows humans to develop molecules that treat disease, efficiently grow crops, power our homes with innovative fuels and lubricants, and develop materials and plastics that are essential for modern life. Redox reactions are an important class of organic transformation where electrons are added or removed from molecules to engender a chemical reaction. This reaction is typically driven by the addition of a reactive redox reagent, which creates large quantities of waste that are often toxic and expensive to dispose of. Electrochemistry is an enabling technology for organic synthesis, as it replaces these reagents by directly transferring electrons at the surface of electrodes submerged in the reaction solution. There are two main advantages to this technique. The first is that lower amounts of waste, or no waste at all, is produced and less energy is needed, providing a more efficient and environmentally sustainable way to conduct redox reactions. The second is that the applied potential, or driving force, can be readily tuned, which provides greater selectivity, new reactivity, higher functional group tolerance and less undesired side-products. While providing efficiency, selectivity and environmental benefits, there are practical challenges associated with electrochemical reactions when compared to standard synthetic organic reactions. The greatest challenge with using the technique is often associated with the set-ups, which can be complex, expensive, are not well suited for parallelisation/reaction development and often lead to poor reproducibility. Thus, there is an urgent need to tackle these problems in order to advance the field. In this project, we will develop new reactor systems to aid each stage of reaction development, namely; discovery, optimisation, dissemination and replication. We will focus on additive manufacturing (3D printing) as an inexpensive, rapid and flexible prototyping tool to generate systems that are accessible, inexpensive and, importantly, highly reproducible for organic synthesis. We will develop new materials, innovative designs, print procedures and optimisation tools for reactors, which will be used in the development of a number of synthetic transformations, for which we have preliminary data, but require new reactor-systems to advance further. We will also conduct fundamental studies to further understand the reproducibility issues that currently plague the use of electrochemistry in synthesis. Specifically, the high-level objectives are to a) invent a screening system for organic electrochemistry, b) solve the reproducibility problem, c) create Super-Cells: the next generation of reactors of organic electrochemistry. This 3D printed approach to organic electrochemistry will increase the speed and ease with which novel organic transformations are developed and reproduced, ensuring electrochemistry can deliver on its potential of highly efficient and sustainable chemical reactions. This project will facilitate wide-spread adoption of the technique in organic synthesis, and deliver fundamental understanding, environmental and economic benefits to industry, academia and society as a whole.