Drivers for Performing Photooxidation of Dienes in Micro Reactors

1 Drivers for Performing Photooxidation of Dienes in Micro Reactors 

The photooxidation of cyclopentadiene by singlet oxygen is one step of an industrial process to make 2-cyclopentene-l, 4-diol [40]. Hence the driver is a commercial one, namely to develop a continuous synthesis of this molecule. 

In addition, particularly micro-channel processing is demanded here as the reaction is dangerous owing to the explosive nature of the endoperoxide formed as intermediate. This handling of explosive or toxic compounds for Diels-Alder reactions is also described in [21]. Owing to the use of only small volumes, the hazardous potential can be substantially minimized. This was exemplarily shown for the addition of singlet oxygen. 

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