Large, Highly Modular Narrow-Gap Electrolytic Flow Cell and Application in Dehydrogenative Cross-Coupling of Phenols

Abstract

The successive scale-up of electrochemical reactions is crucial with regard to the implementation of technical electro-organic syntheses. Therefore, we developed a scalable modular parallel-plate electrochemical flow cell. One distinctive feature of this flow cell is that the temperature of the electrodes can be easily controlled from the back side via an external cooling circuit, enabling high reproducibility of electrochemical conversions. Because the gap between the electrodes is kept narrow, small amounts or no supporting electrolyte is required. The practicability and performance of the novel flow cell were validated by three different anodic phenol–phenol cross-couplings as test reactions.