Abstract
Flow chemistry isn’t hard. Don't fall for the slick marketing campaigns and glossy brochures of the corporate vendors. Steer clear of their pricey equipment and exorbitant service contracts. If you do it yourself, you can get better results at a fraction of the cost. So put away your cheque book, roll up your sleeves, and give it a go. This Focus Article shows you how.
Highlights
We'll focus here on semiconductor polymers – our own eld of research for better or for worse – but the methods we describe are general ones that can be applied to most branches of solution-phase synthesis
With PTFE tubing and decent ferrulestyle couplings, you can readily access pressures up to 50 bar. This greatly increases the boiling point of a solvent, allowing you to work at higher temperatures and faster reaction rates. (You can do similar things in a batch reactor, but only if your system is speci cally designed to handle the elevated pressures; standard glassware with ground-glass joints won't be up to the job.)
By varying the ow rates of the two monomers you can change the composition of the reaction mixture, and create a series of copolymers that range continuously in stoichiometry from 100% poly(3-alkylthiophene) to 100% poly(3-alkylselenophene).[7] It really is that easy
Summary
Synthetic chemistry is diverse: reagents, solvents, temperatures, process steps – all of these can change radically from one reaction to the next. You'll almost certainly want a uniform reaction environment so that all your particles form and grow at exactly the same rate, leading to a nice, consistent product.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call