Recent years have witnessed a renaissance in photochemistry due to the availability of modern LEDs that facilitate the generation of drug-like scaffolds when combined with suitable photocatalysts. The use of photons as traceless reagent equivalents thereby improves both atom economy and sustainability of the resulting processes. Performing photochemical transformations in continuous flow mode adds further benefits arising from miniaturisation whilst facilitating reaction scale-up. In this talk, a selection of recent flow-based photoreactions from our group will be highlighted that generate drug-like and often heterocyclic targets with great efficiency. The talk will conclude with examples that showcase how new transformations can be discovered and exploited via flow photochemistry.
Exploiting Flow Photochemistry for the Effective Synthesis of Drug-Like Entities
Marcus Baumann, Assistant Professor in Continuous Flow Chemistry, University College Dublin, Ireland