Continuous‐Flow Microreactor Chemistry under High‐Temperature/Pressure Conditions

High‐temperature organic synthesis can be performed under continuous‐flow conditions in a stainless steel microtubular flow reactor capable of achieving temperatures of 350 °C and 200 bar. Under these extreme experimental environments transformations normally performed in a high‐boiling solvent at reflux temperature – or under sealed‐vessel microwave conditions – can be readily converted to a flow regime by using lower boiling solvents in or near their supercritical state.(© Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2009) Translating microwave to flow chemistry: In a high‐temperature/pressure microtubular flow device, many of the benefits inherent to microwave chemistry such as rapid heating/cooling and sealed‐vessel processing can be mimicked, including the generation of solvents in their supercritical state. In addition, the scalability problem of microwave synthesis can be eliminated.