Figure 1. Scale-up by sizing-up and number-up                                    Flow chemistry processes and micro-reactor technology has been one of the latest research trends in organic synthesis.

When such technology is combined with the approach of number-up instead of sizing-upduring process scale-up (Figure 1), it can even be an approach for the pharmaceutical and fine chemical production.

Several recent reviews (see ref. 1and the references therein) summarize various features concerning  the fabrication and operation of micro-reactors.

Even if micro-reactor technology provides several advantages compared to batch process operations, draw-backs exists, for example, the application of this technology is in general restricted to relative small production volumes.

Multi-jet oscillating disc (mjod) milli-reactor for accelerated continuous flow organic synthesis (on milli-scale rather than micro-scale) is a novel patent applied technology2  by Fluens Synthesis AS. 3 This technology was designed and developed with the intention to perform organic synthesis in continuous macro (35-50 mL) experimental scale.

The advantages of continuous flow synthesis in terms of the new mjod milli-reactor system technology are numerous, as is for the micro-reactor systems commercially available on the marked today. However, the new mjod milli-reactor system possesses further advantages compared to the micro-reactors:        

• Compared to micro-reactor systems, the mjod milli-reactor system will probably provide higher throughput due to the scale difference, but still maintain the major advantages found for the micro-reactor.
• The milli-reactor system may be implemented for the production of fine chemical quantities by means of a relative small “number-up” number
• Slurries of the substrate, the reagent(s), or the catalyst(s) can be used without clogging tiny channels as take place in micro-reactors.
• The mjod milli-reactor system is very flexible and can be set-up for several types of reactions. A small bunch of process schemes in shows in the Figures 2-4.
• The system can easily be used for telescoped multi-step syntheses, a flow scheme is provided in Figure 4.
• The system can be used for two-phase reactions, probably with reduction of the quantity of of the PTC, or even in some cases without the presence of PTC.
        

Figure 2. Flow scheme of a Fluens Synthesis multi-jet oscillating disc milli-reactor system. The present system shows a cross-flow linear reactor set-up with multiple injection points.

Figure 3. Flow scheme of a Fluens Synthesis multi-jet oscillating disc milli-reactor system. This set-up is a simple set-up with two feeding pumps. The substrate and the reagent can be introduced as slurry, a solution, or neat. The solvent reservoir is used to take out the final reaction mixture found in the reactor chambers when the reagent and substrate reservoirs are drained.

Figure 4. Flow scheme of a Fluens Synthesis multi-jet oscillating disc milli-reactor system. This set-up is dedicated for two steps telescoped syntheses, with possibility to introduce two various reagents one for each of the synthetic steps. The two different reaction zones are furnished with separate heating/cooling circuits allowing also regulation of two various temperatures.