Manuel Nuno

Vapourtec Ltd, UK

Title: Catalytic processes under continuous flow- Current trends and applications

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Biography

Manuel Nuño completed his MChem at Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain and York University, UK moving to University of Bath, UK to undertake his PhD in photocatalysis under the supervision of Dr Richard J. Ball.

Following completion of his PhD, Manuel advanced his process improvement skills during three years as process development chemist in food manufacturing industry working to improve the performance of large scale batch and flow chemical processes involving extraction, purification and crystallisation of sugars. Early in 2019 Manuel moved to Vapourtec ltd as a research scientist, offering applications and chemistry support to customer and product development teams. Projects he has worked with include, photochemistry in flow, flow peptide synthesis, organometallic chemistry in flow and continuous electrochemical oxidation of natural products.

Abstract

Flow chemistry is a growing area in modern chemistry. Thanks to its ability to perform faster reactions, ease of working with gases or unstable intermediates, flow chemistry has attracted a lot of interest for a wide variety of applications.

Probably one of the best-known advantages of flow chemistry is the ability to safely run high pressure-high temperature reactions (up to 200 bar), enabling to heat reactions over the solvents’ boiling point. Flow reactions can then be completed within minutes, instead of hours when working in batch.

Catalysed reactions circumvent kinetics. By offering a lower energy pathway it does not require extreme conditions and works very well in round bottom flasks. Although it would not seem necessary to switch to a flow chemistry platform, the ability to work with gaseous reagents under pressure, the precise control of reaction conditions, or the wide range of inline analytical techniques, makes flow chemistry an ideal vehicle to explore catalysed processes.

The aim of this presentation is to describe different approaches to do catalysis in flow, covering the technical aspects, advantages, and how to choose the most suited approach. This presentation will cover examples from novel electrocatalysis to catalytic hydrogenations in both homogeneous and heterogeneous systems.