Sustainable, continuous chemical manufacturing using micro flow reactor technology

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Many business sectors have moved production to a 'just-in-time' operation that offers many practicaladvantages that lead to improved efficiency and cost savings. Fine-chemical synthesis, such as the preparationof drugs, may have the most to be gained by moving to such a format and yet chemical manufacturingcontinues to be done following traditional scale-up strategies with the goal of producing single batches of largequantities of final material. The build up and maintenance of large chemical inventories is a serious potentialhealth and environmental concern and creates logistical and quality control issues. For such approaches to beadopted, it would take a significant shift in mind set in industry and the invention of pioneering newtechnology. Flowed chemical synthesis is currently being evaluated as the technological platform upon whichsustained chemical manufacturing will be built. The premise is that reactions can be performed on a small scaleat any one point in time in small diameter reactors (chips or tubes). This will allow for rapid reaction conditionassessment and optimization literally on single drops of effluent from the reactor, thus drastically reducingenvironmental impact. Once optimized conditions are achieved, the process can be run for as long as isnecessary to generate the desired amount of material. If much larger quantities are required, the reactions canbe flowed in parallel, but again it is produced now only in the quantities necessary to meet need eliminatinglarge-scale chemical storage. The PI of this initiative has developed pioneering flow technology usingmicrowave irradiation to rapidly drive reactions to completion in the relatively short time that they reside in theflow reactor. He has assembled a diverse team of chemical, computer, and electronics engineers and syntheticand analytical chemists to integrate the flow microwave reactor into a standalone synthesis plant capable ofreaction optimization using artificial intelligence with complete computer control. This new technology, whichcan operate at very high temperatures and pressures as is necessary, will provide a conceptually uniqueapproach to chemical synthesis and a solution for sustained chemical manufacturing in Canada and beyond.