Flow Chemistry for C-H Activation

Ziel

The metal-catalysed group-directed functionalisation of C-H bonds is emerging as an important synthetic methodology in organic chemistry. Despite the advances in the field, however, C-H functionalisation processes are still plagued by several disadvantages, such as selectivity and reproducibility issues, the necessity of directing-group (DG) introduction, and the often difficult DG cleavage. This proposal combines the development of novel chemical transformations with the use of flow microreactors to: 1)make the DG introduction and cleavage more efficient and synthetically useful, and 2) make the C-H functionalisation processes more selective and atom economic, thus addressing several important weaknesses of this type of chemistry. After the development of the individual transformations in continuous-flow, the three crucial steps (DG introduction, group-directed C-H functionalisation and DG cleavage) will be integrated in a combined, multistep protocol, with the aim of minimising purification steps, and ultimately provide a cleaner and faster synthesis of functionalised molecules in a single continuous process.