Inline Reaction Monitoring With ThalesNano and Mettler Toledo Technologies
The pharmaceutical and chemical industries are continually searching to make the most efficient use of compounds, solvents, energy, and practical chemists’ time. The advantages of flow reactors over their batch counterparts, such as faster optimization and scale up, higher reproducibility, and a high level of temperature and pressure control are seen as a solution to these problems and have led to flow technology becoming common place in today’s laboratory. However, the inability to monitor reactions in real time has meant that the true ability of flow reactors regarding reaction optimization and scale up has yet to be fully exploited. The optimization of the chemical reaction using a flow reactor requires a fast and efficient method to measure the consumption of reactants as well as the formation of products and by-products.
The pairing of ThalesNano's best in class flow reactor technology with Mettler Toledo’s market leading ReactIR™ technology with the DS Micro Flow Cell provides the user with the ability to observe the reaction in real time and use the analytical data to control key parameters such as the flow of reactants, temperature, and pressure, delivering optimum results within minutes.
The two flow-based technologies are so complimentary that minimal integration efforts are needed to combine them, meaning that current ReactIR users or ThalesNano customers may take advantage of this new application with virtually no system downtime.
The combined systems can be applied to reactions where toxic/dangerous intermediates may be generated. Inline reaction monitoring can notify the user whether all the intermediate has been reacted to make these reactions safer for chemists.
When integrated with the H-Cube Midi™ or H-Cube Maxi™, process or production chemists may monitor catalyst activity during the reaction and change to a fresh catalyst bed when conversion drops below an acceptable level due to catalyst poisoning. This will ensure high purity product, avoiding the expense of unnecessary purification.
Prof. Steven Ley’s group have already published work carried out 
using the React IR 45m and an FT-IR diamond flow probe to monitor reactions on different flow reactors. The paper details how the system was used to monitor difficult reactions on the H-Cube® and H-Cube Midi™.
The H-Cube Midi™ was used to fully saturate a nicotinic acid ester at
5 mL/min, 0.1M, 90°C, 80 bar, and using 5% Pd/C as catalyst.
H-Cube Midi™
The ReactIR system was also used to monitor the reduction of a multi-substituted double bond. Butane-2,3-diacetal protected alkene was hydrogenated using 5% Rh/Al2O3, 60 bar, 40°C, and 1 mL/min on the H-Cube® .
In both cases, the ReactIR system was able to monitor reagent consumption and product formation aiding the rapid optimization of parameters. The full paper can be downloaded from the following webpage:
For information on how you can use these two products together, please contact info@thalesnano.com.