A single liquid-handling robotic platform for batch and flow chemistry applications

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The project will involve the design, construction and integration of reactor modules which are capable ofreceiving fluids from multiple reagent reservoirs for batch or flow synthetic chemistry experiments. Currentconventional manufacturing of fine chemicals uses large reaction vessels in which all the reagents are addedand the reaction stirred and heated or cooled as necessary to drive the transformations to completion. For avariety of reasons, such reactions can sometimes not reach preset specifications and this is referred to as a batchfailure. In the pharmaceutical sector, this can have catastrophic consequences for patients heavily reliant onconstant supply of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) that makes up their drugs. As a consequence, thepharmaceutical sector targets the production of 2.5X the actual annual requirement of API, just to ensure aconstant supply. This material is biologically active and if not used, must then be carefully decomposed, whichis not only an unnecessary cost but raises health and environmental concerns. Flow chemistry is seen as thefuture of the fine chemical manufacturing sector as the material is made constantly, but on a much smallerscale. So, it is safer, consumes less energy, and only produces the amount of API material that is required. Mostoften, reactions have been optimized in batch reactors, and then are modified to suit production in flow. Thereexists no platform to readily move between these two manufacturing technologies. This proposal seeks to fillthis gap with new robotic reactor technology that will allow for the ready movement back and forth betweenprocess optimization for batch reactions and for flow applications. This will be disruptive technology and thereare presently zero products in this marketspace.