Synthesis of methylene blue and some new thioether derivatives with an enhanced electrochemical microflow cell

Descripción del proyecto

Química ecológica para la síntesis de fármacos

La síntesis química adolece de importantes limitaciones, como la toxicidad, la seguridad y los elevados costes. Por el contrario, la electrosíntesis orgánica tiene lugar en un solo paso y en unas condiciones moderadas, sin necesidad de reactivos químicos y de forma respetuosa con el medio ambiente. Por ello, el objetivo del proyecto BlueFlowCell, financiado con fondos europeos, es fabricar un microrreactor de flujo electroquímico para impulsar la electrosíntesis de una amplia gama de reacciones sin tener que apoyarse en una solución electrolítica. Los científicos del proyecto tienen previsto utilizar este método para sintetizar el azul de metileno, el primer fármaco totalmente sintético usado en medicina, y los derivados del tioéter, ampliamente utilizados en la química médica o como agentes antioxidantes y antibacterianos.

Objetivo

Methylene blue is the first fully synthetic drug used in medicine, the most effective and safe medicines needed in a health system. In addition, thioethers derivatives are important materials that are used in organic, bioorganic and medicinal chemistry and are also known to exhibit different biological activities such as antioxidant and antibacterial. These compounds are synthesized commercially by chemical methods that suffer from significant limitations, such as expensive and toxic reagents, solvents, tedious work-up, safety problems. Organic electrosynthesis is recognized as a typical environmentally friendly process with features that many of which cannot be achieved by other methods. Most electroorganic processes are performed under reagentless and mild conditions in one step using efficient and ecofriendly methods and are in agreement with all the principles of green chemistry. Within this field, the use of microreactors in continuous flow is also concurrent with electrochemistry because of its convenient advantages over batch, such as no supporting electrolyte at all, due to the small distance between electrodes; high electrode surface-to-reactor volume ratio, short residence time and etc. This project aims to fabricate an electrochemical flow microreactor by the novel method of photolithography to decrease the interelectrode gap below 100µm. Thus, the resulting device should be suited to the electrosynthesis of a wide range of reactions without a supporting electrolyte solution. Through the present project, we also aim electrochemical synthesis of methylene blue and some new thioethers derivatives for the first time with a facile one-pot and supporting electrolyte-free method. Overall, this method has shown to be a promising tool for electrosynthesis and improving the outcome of standard batch cells. As well as, during the whole of the project the ER will gain maximum knowledge in microfluidic integrated devices and benefit from entrepreneurship skills.