Catalysis in Flow: Practical and Selective Transformations of Alcohols

Development of clean, selective, atom-efficient reactions has become the new paradigm in organic synthesis, driven by a desire to reduce economic, as well as environmental costs of chemical production. In this respect, one of the most challenging reactions is the oxidation of alcohols to aldehydes and ketones, which is ubiquitous in organic chemistry, yet also one of the least efficient. The lack of chemoselective and atom-economical oxidants often make these reactions unattractive, particularly for the large scale synthesis of complex molecules. In this presentation, we will demonstrate a new way of transforming alcohols to other functional molecules by performing catalysis in a continuous flow reactor which fulfil several criteria for practical and ‘green' synthesis