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Organic azides are important in the synthesis of many target molecules of great use in fine chemical and pharmaceutical production. The use of this class of compounds is however limited due to their hazardous nature and many safety concerns, as they are highly exothermic. Micro reactors can handle exotherms extremely well, due to the inherent high surface area to volume ratio, unlike the conventional batch process. This dissertation therefore aims to investigate the safe application of micro reactors in acyl azide chemistry.With this in mind, Chapter 1 provides a comprehensive background on organic azides, reaction calorimetric studies, flow chemistry technology (micro reactors) and their theoretical advantages. This chapter also discusses the preparation of organic azides in continuous flow systems and scaling up in continuous flow systems. Chapter 2 illustrates and discusses multivariate optimisation of benzoyl azide synthesis as a model reaction, synthesis of other acyl azides using the model reaction optimised conditions and multistep synthesis of carbamates, amides and amines in continuous flow systems via the Curtius rearrangement of benzoyl azide formed in situ from benzoyl chloride and sodium azide. The chapter also discusses process hazards analysis and evaluation of benzoyl azide synthesis and decomposition using calorimetric studies. It also investigates and discusses the effects of different mixing regimes and channel sizes on scale up. Chapter 3 has comprehensive experimental details for the whole dissertation with Chapter 4 providing the concluding remarks and future work recommendations.

Flow chemistry and continuous processing techniques are now frequently used in synthetic laboratories, taking advantage of the ability to contain reactive or hazardous intermediates and to perform moderate scale-up processes for important compounds. However, only a limited number of methods and tools for connecting flow synthesis steps into a single protocol have been described, and as a result manual interventions are frequently required between consecutive stages. There are two main challenges to overcome. Work-up operations such as solvent extractions and filtrations are invariably needed to ensure high purity of the intermediates. Solutions for achieving this are well established within industrial facilities for continuous production, but adapting such machinery for laboratory use is rarely straightforward. Secondly, the combination of multiple steps tends to result in a more elaborate reactor configuration. The control procedures required to achieve optimum performance may then be beyond the capabilities of a single researcher. Computer control and remote monitoring can help to make such experiments more practical; but commercially-available systems are often highly specialised, and purpose-built at high cost for a particular system, and so are not suitable for laboratory scientists to use routinely. This work describes the development of software tools to enable rapid prototyping of control systems that can integrate multiple instruments and devices (in Chapter 2). These are applied to three multi-step synthesis projects, which also make use of enabling technologies such as heterogeneous reagents and in-line work-up techniques so that material can be passed directly from one stage to the next: In Chapter 1, a series of analogues of a precursor to imatinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor used for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukaemia, are prepared. A “catch-react-release” technique for solid-phase synthesis is used, with computer-controlled operation of the reactors. In Chapter 3, a two-step procedure for the synthesis of piperazine-2-carboxamide, a valuable 3D building block, is developed. A computer control system enabled extended running and the integration of several machines to perform optimisation experiments. In Chapter 4, improvements to the continuous synthesis of 2-aminoadamantane-2-carboxylic acid are discussed. This includes an integrated sequence of three reactions and three workup operations. The final chapter describes a project to evaluate the application of control techniques to a medicinal chemistry project. New ligands for BRD9 and CECR2, proteins involved in the recognition of acetylated histone proteins, are produced. A number of triazolopyridazine compounds were synthesised and tested using a number of assay techniques, including a frontal-affinity chromatography system under development within our group. Pleasingly, the qualitative FAC data showed a good correlation with biological assessments made using established assay techniques. Further work using the FAC method is ongoing.

This thesis presents an integrated study of nanocatalysts for heterogenous catalytic and electrochemical processes using pure ruthenium (Ru) with mixed-phase and platinum-based nanomaterials synthesized by continuous-flow chemistry. There are three major challenges to the application of nanomaterials in heterogenous catalytic reactions and electrocatalytic processes in acidic solution. These challenges are the following: (i) controlling the size, shape and crystallography of nanoparticles to give the best catalytic properties, (ii) scaling these nanoparticles up to a commercial quantity (kg per day) and (iii) making stable nanoparticles that can be used catalytically without degrading in acidic electrolytes. Some crucial limitations of these nanostructured materials in energy conversion and storage applications were overcome by continuous-flow chemistry. By using a continuous-flow reactor, the creation of scalable nanoparticle systems was achieved and their functionality was modified to control the nanoparticles’ physical and chemical characteristics. The nanoparticles were also tested for long-term stability, to make sure these nanoparticles were feasible under realistic working conditions. These nanoparticles are (1) shape- and crystallography-controlled ruthenium (Ru) nanoparticles, (2) size-controlled platinum-metal (Pt-M= nickel (Ni) & copper (Cu)) nanooctahedra (while maintaining morphology) and (3) core-shell platinum@ruthenium (Pt@Ru) nanoparticles where an ultrathin ruthenium shell was templated onto the platinum core. Thus, a complete experimental validation of the formation of a scalable amount of these nanoparticles and their catalytic activity and stability towards the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in acid medium, hydrolysis of ammonia borane (AB) along with plausible explanations were provided.

Chemical processes and reactions are never perfect; there are always some problems in scope, scalability, applicability or safety. Sometimes, if these limitations pose a seemingly insurmountable barrier to the chemistry’s overall usefulness, decades can go by without a single new development even in fields that were initially very promising or popular in their infancy. By looking back on these forgotten topics through the lens of modern technology, new cutting-edge materials and methods can be applied to solve the problems that posed too great a challenge in previous decades. In this thesis, two such examples of reactions initially discovered and developed around the late 1960’s and remained largely untouched ever since will be explored. Chapter 1 will describe the use of ozone as an oxidant to transform amines into the corresponding alkyl nitro species. Ozone is a very powerful oxidant but tends to overreact with most organic substrates, which significantly reduces its potential as a commonplace synthetic tool. These limitations in applicability stem from an inherent lack of control over the reaction, which is the issue that we sought out to address. By applying modern principles of flow chemistry, the functional group tolerance of this oxidation reaction has been drastically increased from its initial state of simple small hydrocarbons. Chapter 2 will follow a similar narrative involving the use of ‘super-bases’ to activate benzylic C-H bonds and generate a variety of benzyllithium species. Organolithiums have also had historic issues with tolerance in transition metal-catalyzed cross coupling reactions. With a surge of new publications addressing this issue by using principles of flow chemistry, there remains a lack of easy methods to generate organolithium nucleophiles as coupling partners. Generation of benzyllithiums from toluene derivatives has historically been limited to require solvent quantities of substrate, along with unreasonably long reaction times at cryogenic temperatures. By utilizing modern tools and synthetic strategies, an easy and streamlined path from toluene derivatives to organolithiums for direct use in cross coupling has been developed.

A direct and highly efficient synthesis has been developed for telmisartan, the active ingredient in the widely prescribed antihypertensive drug Micardis®. This approach brings together two functionalized benzimidazoles using a high-yielding Suzuki reaction that can be catalyzed by a homogeneous palladium source or palladium on a solid support. The ability to perform the cross-coupling reaction was facilitated by the regio-controlled preparation of a 2-bromo-1-methylbenzimidazole precursor. The method developed is the first reported selective bromination at the 2-position of a benzimidazole and produces the first major precursor in high yield (93%). The second precursor, potassium (4-methyl-2-propylbenzimidazol-6-yl) trifluoroborate, was prepared from commercially available 4-bromo-2-methyl-6-nitroaniline. An optimized preparation is described that provides a direct three-step process to prepare the benzimidazole and install the borate; this synthetic sequence yields the second precursor with a 90% yield and no isolated intermediates. The two prepared precursors were combined with a third, commercially available methyl-4’-(bromomethyl)-[1,1’-biphenyl]-2-carboxylate, utilizing a short sequence of high yielding reactions to produce the telmisartan with an 83% yield from these advanced intermediates. This new convergent approach provides the active drug ingredient with an overall yield of 74% while circumventing many issues associated with the previously reported processes. Additionally, a flow-based synthesis of telmisartan was achieved with no intermediate purifications or solvent exchanges. The continuous process utilizes a tubular reactor system coupled with a plug flow cartridge, ultimately delivering telmisartan in an 86% isolated yield.

This thesis describes the application of flow chemistry to discovery and development of medicinal compound synthesis and new chemical methodologies respectively. It is divided into three distinct sections. The first section addresses a brief introduction to flow chemistry, highlighting the advantages and challenges that have been faced in the past and present and also the outlook to the future. The second section reports the integration of machine-assisted methods with batch processes to produce two medicinal compounds, a precursor to the sacubitril and OZ439 respectively. In the respect to the precursor to sacubritil, a flow-batch integrated synthesis is developed to provide the desired product in 54% yield over 7 steps from commercially available 4-iodophenyl. In particular, a tube-in-tube gas flow reactor was employed in three gas-liquid reactions without the need for installing a costly highpressure autoclave. These gas-lquid reactions were an ethylene Heck coupling reaction, an anti-Markovnikov Wacker oxidation and a rhodium-catalysed stereoselective hydrogenation respectively. In addition, a diastereoselective Reformatsky-type carbethoxyallylation using zinc metal was also highlighted in this synthesis to install an important stereocentre. A new antimalarial agent, OZ439 containing a trioxolane unit as the main structural feature, has the unique property of providing a single-dose cure for malaria in humans and has recently completed phase IIb trials. A machine-enabled process for the preparation of OZ439 was developed in 33% overall yield over 5 steps without the need of column chromatography purification. This preparation features a selective continuous hydrogrenation, Griesbaum ozonlysis and a Zn-catalysed amide reduction in the present of triethoxylsilane. The third section contains the development of two new methodologies of diazo compounds with organoboron compounds. The first methodology involves an in situ generation of transient allylic boronic species by reacting TMSCHN2 and E-vinyl boronic acids in flow, followed by subsequent trapping with a range of aldehydes (15 examples, 55-97% yield) and on a large scale (10 mmol) to provide homoallylic alcohols with high diastereoselectivity (>20:1 dr confirmed by 1H NMR). This multicomponent metal-free reaction could also be applied under batch conditions (20 further examples, 60-82% yield). The second methodology involves the preparation of an organodimetallic compound, α-trimethylsilyl benzylboronic acid pinacol esters, by reacting TMSCHN2 and phenylboronic anhydrides (21 examples, 60-91% yield), and the development of their applications as bifunctional building blocks to complex structures.

When designing novel materials for organic photovoltaic (OPV) applications, it is important to consider the significance of structural design on both the chemical and physical properties of the resulting material. The designed targets should promote efficient charge transport along a planar backbone, be solution processable and ideally, both the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) should be able to be easily tuned via synthetic modifications. Using a concise synthetic route, a variety of novel semiconducting polymers and small molecules based on 2,6-di(aryl)benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']difuran (BDF), an electron donating unit, have been developed and characterized. This benzodifuran moiety is of particular interest in this work as it is able to be synthesized in concise, high yielding steps and the core structure has the potential to be readily modified. Chapters Two through Four will demonstrate the power of fine-tuning this molecular species and how a facile synthetic route lends itself to the application specific design and development of BDF polymers and small molecules. The field of organic electronics primarily focusses on polymers and small molecules; however, each of these categories of materials have intrinsic drawbacks. Polymers are generally difficult to solubilize and the batch-to-batch consistency (involving parameters such as molecular weight and material uniformity) is almost impossible to control. Small molecules, while being very uniform and having a defined molecular structure, are difficult to deposit as uniform device films since they are typically not solution processed and are, instead, thermally evaporated onto a substrate. As a result of these key issues, a material of intermediate size and length, namely oligomers, which combine the benefits of small molecules and polymers is highly desired. Towards the realization of this goal, the Chapter Five of this work will share various flow reactor designs specifically geared towards modified flow platforms that allow for the synthesis of oligomeric materials. / 2022-02-08T00:00:00Z

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A intensificação de processos é importante na busca de equipamentos e reações menos nocivos e seguros, um exemplo é a aplicação de microrreatores. A indústria farmacêutica é a maior beneficiária dessa tecnologia, pois os microrreatores, dispositivos com microcanais de até 100 µm, podem reduzir em anos o tempo necessário para desenvolver e produzir um novo fármaco e podem ser montados em unidades industriais extremamente pequenas e compactas. O aumento de casos de diabetes no Brasil na última década vem incentivando a busca por novos fármacos. Neste trabalho, a aplicação de microrreatores capilares é estudada na síntese do (Z)-5-(4-hidroxi-3-metoxibenzilideno)2,4-tiazolidinadiona (HMTZD) e do (Z)-5-(3-hidroxi-4-metoxibenzilideno)2,4-tiazolidinadiona (MHTZD), obtidos da reação de 2,4-tiazolidinediona (TZD) com 4-hidroxi-3-metoxibenzaldeído (Vanilina) e com seu isômero, 3-hidroxi-4-metoxibenzaldeído (Isovanilina), que podem ser utilizados na síntese de moléculas com atividade biológica. Foram obtidos rendimentos máximos do produto HMTZD, 98% em 480 min de reação e do produto MHTZD, 73% em 120 min de reação, contrariando a literatura que apresenta um tempo de reação para essa síntese de 20 h a 40 h. Na síntese em fluxo no microrreator, ficou evidente que quanto maior a temperatura maior a conversão de TZD e o rendimento do produto, chegando a valores de 100%, para a temperatura de 160°C em etanol. A produção no processo batelada e no microrreator foram calculadas e, quando comparadas, mostraram que apenas dois microrreatores de 1 mL em sua melhor condição de operação são capazes de produzir três vezes mais que um reator batelada de 60 mL. Pelo estudo de cinética, a reação utilizando etanol não favorece a formação de reações em paralelo ou em série. As análises qualitativas comprovaram que os produtos esperados foram formados e com alto grau de pureza. / The process intensification is important in the search for less harmful and safe equipment and reactions, an example is the application of microreactors. The pharmaceutical industry is the largest beneficiary of this technology because microreactors, devices with microchannels up to 100 µm, can reduce the time required to develop and produce a new drug in years and can be mounted in extremely small and compact industrial units. The increase in diabetes cases in Brazil in the last decade has been encouraging the search for new drugs. In this work, the application of capillary microreactors is studied in the synthesis of (Z)-5-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzylidene)2,4-thiazolidinedione (HMTZD) and (Z)-5-(3-hydroxy-4- methoxybenzylidene)2,4-thiazolidinedione (MHTZD), obtained from the reaction of 2,4-thiazolidinedione (TZD) with 4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde (Vanillin) and its isomer, 3-hydroxy-4-methoxybenzaldehyde (Isovanillin), which can be used in the synthesis of molecules with biological activity. Maximum yields of 98% in 480 min, for the product HMTZD, and 73% in 120 min, for the product MHTZD, were obtained, contradicting literature that shows a reaction time for this synthesis of 20 h to 40 h. In the flow synthesis in the microreactor, it was evident that the higher the temperature the higher the conversion of TZD and the yield of the product, reaching 100%, in ethanol working with the temperature of 160°C. The production in the batch process and the microreactor were calculated and, when compared, showed that only two 1 mL microreactors in their best operating condition are able to produce three times more than a 60 mL batch reactor. By the study of kinetics, the reaction using ethanol does not favor the formation of reactions in parallel or in series. The qualitative analyzes showed that the expected products was formed and with a high degree of purity.