Development of a microfluidic photochemical flow reactor concept by rapid prototyping

Robin Dinter; Suzanne Willems; Thilo Nissalk; Oguz Hastürk; Andreas Brunschweiger; Norbert Kockmann

doi:10.3389/fchem.2023.1244043

Development of a microfluidic photochemical flow reactor concept by rapid prototyping

Front Chem. 2023 Aug 7:11:1244043. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2023.1244043. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Robin Dinter¹, Suzanne Willems², Thilo Nissalk¹, Oguz Hastürk², Andreas Brunschweiger^{2

3}, Norbert Kockmann¹

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Equipment Design, Department of Biochemical and Chemical Engineering, TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany.
² Medicinal Chemistry, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany.
³ Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy, Institute for Pharmacy and Food Chemistry, Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.

Abstract

The transfer from batch to flow chemistry is often based on commercial microfluidic equipment, such as costly complete reactor systems, which cannot be easily tailored to specific requirements of technologies such as DNA-encoded library technology (DELT), in particular for increasingly important photochemical reactions. Customized photoreactor concepts using rapid prototyping technology offer a modular, flexible, and affordable design that allows for adaptation to various applications. In order to validate the prototype reactors, a photochemical pinacol coupling reaction at 368 nm was conducted to demonstrate the transfer from batch to flow chemistry. The conversion rates were optimized by adapting the design parameters of the microfluidic flow photoreactor module. Subsequently, the photoreactor module has been extended to an application with DNA-tagged substrates by switching to LEDs with a wavelength of 454 nm. The successful recovery of DNA confirmed the feasibility of the modular-designed flow photo reactor. This collaborative approach holds enormous potential to drive the development of DELT and flow equipment design.

Keywords: DNA-encoded chemistry (DEL); batch to flow; flow photoreactor concept; photochemistry; photoredox reaction; rapid prototyping.