Flow chemistry—Microreaction technology comes of age

TLDR

Microreaction technology has evolved over two decades into a mature, commercially available field, driven by continuous flow adoption and growing pharmaceutical manufacturing interest. The Perspective aims to summarize the state‑of‑the‑art enabling technologies for reaction and separation equipment in microreactor systems. The article reviews enabling technologies, exemplified by end‑to‑end pharmaceutical fabrication in compact reconfigurable microreactor units, and discusses future challenges and computational integration. Automation and optimization are highlighted as promising applications of microreactor technology. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers, AIChE Journal, 63:858–869 (2017).

Abstract

Over the past two decades, microreaction technology has matured from early devices and concepts to encompass a wide range of commercial equipment and applications. This evolution has been aided by the confluence of microreactor development and adoption of continuous flow technology in organic chemistry. This Perspective summarizes the current state‐of‐the art with focus on enabling technologies for reaction and separation equipment. Automation and optimization are highlighted as promising applications of microreactor technology. The move towards continuous processing in pharmaceutical manufacturing underscores increasing industrial interest in the technology. As an example, end‐to‐end fabrication of pharmaceuticals in a compact reconfigurable system illustrates the development of on‐demand manufacturing units based on microreactors. The final section provides an outlook for the technology, including implementation challenges and integration with computational tools. AIChE J , 2017 © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J , 63: 858–869, 2017