Scalable Continuous Photochemical Reactions: Reactors and PAT Challenges

Photochemistry is potentially very powerful tools for manufacturing not least because energy is delivered to reacting molecules far more selectively than by bulk heating. In recent years we have been addressing some of the challenges of making photochemistry synthesis greener, more energy efficient and more widely accessible. This presentation will cover our activity particularly aiming for generic approaches for linking and scaling up multi-step processes in the context of photo-, electro- and thermal- chemistry on the kg/day scale with emphasis on singlet O2 and the synthesis of the anti-malarial drug Artemisinin as well as recent advances in simple reactor designs for using both visible focussed on continuous photo-redox and oxidative and reductive electrochemical processes enabling 1-10 kg/day productivity in Taylor Vortex reactors with a very small footprint. Existing and new PAT approaches that exploit autonomous flow reactors and self-optimisation will be discussed with the aim of improving sensitivity, specificity, dynamic range and the speed of data acquisition, to be coupled with AI innovations.