Photochemical Synthesis of the Bioactive Fragment of Salbutamol and Derivatives in a Self-Optimizing Flow Chemistry Platform

Abstract

The implementation of self-optimizing flow reactors has been mostly limited to model reactions or known synthesis routes. In this work, a self-optimizing flow photochemistry platform is used to develop an original synthesis of the bioactive fragment of Salbutamol and derivatives. The key photochemical steps for the construction of the aryl vicinyl amino alcohol moiety consist of a C-C bond forming reaction followed by an unprecedented, high yielding (>80 %), benzylic oxidative cyclization.

Keywords: automation; flow chemistry; photochemistry; self-optimization; synthetic methods.