Continuous photo-oxidation in a vortex reactor: efficient operations using air drawn from the laboratory
We report the construction and use of a vortex reactor which uses a rapidly rotating cylinder to generate Taylor vortices for continuous flow thermal and photochemical reactions. The reactor is designed to operate under conditions required for vortex generation. The flow pattern of the vortices has...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
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American Chemical Society
2017
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44732/ |
| _version_ | 1848796986446184448 |
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| author | Lee, Darren S. Amara, Zacharias Clark, Charlotte A. Xu, Zeyuan Kakimpa, Bruce Morvan, Herve Pickering, S.J. Poliakoff, Martyn George, Michael W. |
| author_facet | Lee, Darren S. Amara, Zacharias Clark, Charlotte A. Xu, Zeyuan Kakimpa, Bruce Morvan, Herve Pickering, S.J. Poliakoff, Martyn George, Michael W. |
| author_sort | Lee, Darren S. |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | We report the construction and use of a vortex reactor which uses a rapidly rotating cylinder to generate Taylor vortices for continuous flow thermal and photochemical reactions. The reactor is designed to operate under conditions required for vortex generation. The flow pattern of the vortices has been represented using computational fluid dynamics, and the presence of the vortices can be easily visualized by observing streams of bubbles within the reactor. This approach presents certain advantages for reactions with added gases. For reactions with oxygen, the reactor offers an alternative to traditional setups as it efficiently draws in air from the lab without the need specifically to pressurize with oxygen. The rapid mixing generated by the vortices enables rapid mass transfer between the gas and the liquid phases allowing for a high efficiency dissolution of gases. The reactor has been applied to several photochemical reactions involving singlet oxygen (1O2) including the photo-oxidations of α-terpinene and furfuryl alcohol and the photodeborylation of phenyl boronic acid. The rotation speed of the cylinder proved to be key for reaction efficiency, and in the operation we found that the uptake of air was highest at 4000 rpm. The reactor has also been successfully applied to the synthesis of artemisinin, a potent antimalarial compound; and this three-step synthesis involving a Schenk-ene reaction with 1O2, Hock cleavage with H+, and an oxidative cyclization cascade with triplet oxygen (3O2), from dihydroartemisinic acid was carried out as a single process in the vortex reactor. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:56:42Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-44732 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:56:42Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | American Chemical Society |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-447322020-05-04T18:53:48Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44732/ Continuous photo-oxidation in a vortex reactor: efficient operations using air drawn from the laboratory Lee, Darren S. Amara, Zacharias Clark, Charlotte A. Xu, Zeyuan Kakimpa, Bruce Morvan, Herve Pickering, S.J. Poliakoff, Martyn George, Michael W. We report the construction and use of a vortex reactor which uses a rapidly rotating cylinder to generate Taylor vortices for continuous flow thermal and photochemical reactions. The reactor is designed to operate under conditions required for vortex generation. The flow pattern of the vortices has been represented using computational fluid dynamics, and the presence of the vortices can be easily visualized by observing streams of bubbles within the reactor. This approach presents certain advantages for reactions with added gases. For reactions with oxygen, the reactor offers an alternative to traditional setups as it efficiently draws in air from the lab without the need specifically to pressurize with oxygen. The rapid mixing generated by the vortices enables rapid mass transfer between the gas and the liquid phases allowing for a high efficiency dissolution of gases. The reactor has been applied to several photochemical reactions involving singlet oxygen (1O2) including the photo-oxidations of α-terpinene and furfuryl alcohol and the photodeborylation of phenyl boronic acid. The rotation speed of the cylinder proved to be key for reaction efficiency, and in the operation we found that the uptake of air was highest at 4000 rpm. The reactor has also been successfully applied to the synthesis of artemisinin, a potent antimalarial compound; and this three-step synthesis involving a Schenk-ene reaction with 1O2, Hock cleavage with H+, and an oxidative cyclization cascade with triplet oxygen (3O2), from dihydroartemisinic acid was carried out as a single process in the vortex reactor. American Chemical Society 2017-07-03 Article PeerReviewed Lee, Darren S., Amara, Zacharias, Clark, Charlotte A., Xu, Zeyuan, Kakimpa, Bruce, Morvan, Herve, Pickering, S.J., Poliakoff, Martyn and George, Michael W. (2017) Continuous photo-oxidation in a vortex reactor: efficient operations using air drawn from the laboratory. Organic Process Research and Development, 21 (7). pp. 1042-1050. ISSN 1520-586X http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.oprd.7b00153 doi:10.1021/acs.oprd.7b00153 doi:10.1021/acs.oprd.7b00153 |
| spellingShingle | Lee, Darren S. Amara, Zacharias Clark, Charlotte A. Xu, Zeyuan Kakimpa, Bruce Morvan, Herve Pickering, S.J. Poliakoff, Martyn George, Michael W. Continuous photo-oxidation in a vortex reactor: efficient operations using air drawn from the laboratory |
| title | Continuous photo-oxidation in a vortex reactor: efficient operations using air drawn from the laboratory |
| title_full | Continuous photo-oxidation in a vortex reactor: efficient operations using air drawn from the laboratory |
| title_fullStr | Continuous photo-oxidation in a vortex reactor: efficient operations using air drawn from the laboratory |
| title_full_unstemmed | Continuous photo-oxidation in a vortex reactor: efficient operations using air drawn from the laboratory |
| title_short | Continuous photo-oxidation in a vortex reactor: efficient operations using air drawn from the laboratory |
| title_sort | continuous photo-oxidation in a vortex reactor: efficient operations using air drawn from the laboratory |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44732/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44732/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44732/ |