Flow Chemistry and Mixing

I studied the alkylation of substituted benzoic acids by iodomethane at the presence of a proton sponge (TMGN). The Hammett reaction constant was obtained for this reaction, and by studying the reaction kinetics in different temperatures, the activation parameters were obtained. Using this set-up and using bi-functional substrates, the reaction selectivity in microsystem was also investigated. Using this microreactor kinetics of N-alkylation of several organic superbases by iodomethane was also studied. Finally, the microreactor system enabled the small-scale synthesis of several natural compounds. The alkylation of quercetin, Trolox (an antioxidant), clofibric acid and podocarpic acid (an antitumor medicine) by iodomethane at the presence of TMGN was conducted at the scale of millimole. My Erasmus student (Thijs Janssens) also studied the selectivity of the syringic acid reaction.Two papers (1 and 2) were extracted from this work, and I presented my findings in five national/international conferences.