Organometallics in Flow

FASTER, SAFER, MORE SELECTIVE!

Status Quo

The use of organometallic reagents based on zinc and magnesium (Grignard reagents) has been one of the most effective methods of C-C bond formation for more than 100 years.The majority of the reagents is used in the pharmaceutical industry. Metal activation, undesirable side reactions, and high exothermicity are among the most common batch challenges.

Our approach allows your chemistry to reach its full potential

Especially the actual organometallic reagent formation can benefit immensely from continuous process control. The ultimate goal of our work is to generate reactive intermediates such as Grignard reagents or organometallic compounds based on Zinc in-situ under continuous processing conditions and, after quality control , to convert them directly in a subsequent step.

REACTORS & SETUPS      

Advantages

• Suppression of undesired side reactions such as Wurtz coupling due to large metal excess,

• No "runaway" of the reaction thanks to continuous processing,

• Efficient initiation of the reaction thanks to integrated metal activation,

• Continuous supply of metal,

• Online/inline analytics via infrared spectroscopy,

• Product quality assessment via thermometric titration and gas chromatography,

• Easy scalability,

• Short residence times and narrow residence time distributions,

• Enhanced safety due to small reactor volumes.
  

With our reactors and setups, we have successfully synthesized a growing number of organometallic reagents on the laboratory as well as the pilot scale. Furthermore, we have converted them in follow-up reactions.

This means for you:

• Safer production,

• Higher yields/improved product quality/less side product formation,

• Cost and time savings,

• Faster time-to-market,

• Flexible production amounts (“on demand”), no surplus production of reagents,

• Innovation lead.