Abstract
From the pharmaceutical industry’s point of view, photoredox catalysis has emerged as a powerful tool in the field of the synthesis of added-value compounds. With this method, it is possible to excite the catalyst by the action of light, allowing electron transfer processes to occur and, consequently, oxidation and reduction reactions. Thus, in association with photoredox catalysis, microreactor technology and continuous flow chemistry also play an important role in the development of organic synthesis processes, as this technology offers high yields, high selectivity and reduced side reactions. However, there is a lack of a more detailed understanding of the photoredox catalysis process, and computational tools based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can be used to deal with this and boost to reach higher levels of accuracy to continue innovating in this area. In this review, a comprehensive overview of the fundamentals of photoredox catalysis is provided, including the application of this technology for the synthesis of added-value chemicals in microreactors. Moreover, the advantages of the continuous flow system in comparison with batch systems are pointed out. It was also demonstrated how modeling and simulation using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can be critical for the design and optimization of microreactors applied to photoredox catalysis, so as to better understand the reagent interactions and the influence of light in the reaction medium. Finally, a discussion about the future prospects of photoredox reactions considering the complexity of the process is presented.
Highlights
The future development of synthetic organic chemistry involves environmentally friendly and sustainable alternatives in terms of energy to promote chemical transformations, using “light” as an abundant and renewable energy source (Narayanam and Stephenson, 2011; Shaw et al, 2016)
Photochemical reactions are based on the use of light to provide the activation energy to induce the synthesis of a target molecule from a simple substrate
Photoredox catalysis has emerged as a versatile platform for catalytic methodologies for organic synthesis, using photons of visible light as a reagent without tracking
Summary
The future development of synthetic organic chemistry involves environmentally friendly and sustainable alternatives in terms of energy to promote chemical transformations, using “light” as an abundant and renewable energy source (Narayanam and Stephenson, 2011; Shaw et al, 2016). Recent progress in the use of photoredox catalysis as a new conceptual approach to mediate synthetic organic reactions using visible light has been promoted by the combined efforts of three research groups: MacMillan (Shaw et al, 2016), Stephenson (Narayanam and Stephenson, 2011), Yoon (Schultz and Yoon, 2014) and many other researchers. This growing interest in photochemistry has brought to light some old and unresolved challenges such as reproducibility, scale and efficiency (Corrigan et al, 2016). This article aims to assist researchers in the fundamentals of photoredox catalysis and CFD-based technology for simulation of the reaction environment in photoredox catalysis, from the compilation of data in the literature as research gaps were identified on this theme, justifying further investigation
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