Covalent continuous-flow reactor

Probably the first non-covalent immobilization of a chiral complex with diazaligands was the adsorption of a rhodium-diphenylethylenediamine complex on different supports [71]. These solids were used for the hydride-transfer reduction of prochiral ketones (Scheme 2) in a continuous flow reactor. The inorganic support plays a crucial role. The chiral complex was easily... 

These noncovalently anchored catalysts in general exhibit a behavior similar to their covalently bound analogues, but can now be separated from the support after the reactions by a simple filtration step. So far, these immobilized systems have not been used in continuous flow reactors. 

This example illustratively shows that inorganic materials are well suited for continuous flow processes in column-like reactors. Thus, covalently immobilized NH-benzyl-(li, 2S)-(-)-norephedrine 10 on silica inside a column was doped with ruthenium. This setup was used to carry out continuous asymmetric transfer hydrogenation reactions (Scheme 10) [38]. Remarkably,no catalyst deactivation occurred over a period of one week, which the authors ascribed to the successful site isolation of the catalyst on the support. 

Biocatalytic reactions performed using immobilized enzyme microreactors under continuous flow mode have been found effective for hydrolysis reactions [121,158-161], with the enzyme either trapped in the matrix [159], covalently linked to modified surface wall [160,121], enzymes entrapped in hydrogels [162], or enzymes immobilized on monolith [179]. The experimental setup consists of either chip-type microreactors with activated chaimel walls where enzymes bind, enzymes that bind to beads, enzymes entrapped in the matrix, enzymes adsorbed in nanoporous materials, and most recently, nanosprings as supports for immobilized enzymes in chip-based reactors, or enzyme immobilized monolith reactors, where support is packed inside a capillary tube (Table 10.4). 

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