Development of methodologies for reactions involving gases as reagents: microwave heating and conventionally-heated continuous-flow processing as examples

Abstract

Microwave (MW) heating and conventionallyheated continuous-flow processing have emerged as viable alternatives to the traditional methods of preparing organic compounds. These tools enable the chemist to circumvent some of the issues associated with conventional processing, while improving the efficiency of chemical transformations. Recently, several strategies have been developed to perform reactions using gaseous reagents, employing MW heating or conventionally-heated microand meso-flow technologies. This perspective describes some of these strategies by means of a discussion of work performed in our laboratory, focused around alkoxycarbonylation and hydrogenation reactions.

Keywords

• carbonylation
• flow chemistry
• gases
• hydrogenation
• microwave heating