Hyderabad: A specialized laboratory for Flow Chemistry and process intensification has been established in the School of Chemistry at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) under the Institute of Eminence (IoE) program.
Flow chemistry and continuous manufacturing have many advantages over traditional batch processes practised in chemistry labs and the chemical industry for over a century.
Faster reaction times – minutes to an hour instead of several hours, cheaper – less use of solvents and chemical reagents, flexible production, higher level of quality assurance, minimal waste generation – recyclable solvents and catalysts, online monitoring of reaction stages to align with sustainable development goals are few advantages of Flow Chemistry.
Synthesis and manufacturing through flow processes and continuous reactions are rapidly becoming the industry norm for complex drug molecules, fine chemicals, and agrochemicals.
With the new facility, hazardous chemical transformations such as those with hydrogen gas, ozone, diazomethane, carbon monoxide, etc can be carried out safely and with the economical use of catalysts and solvents.
However, it is possible to carry out the end-to-end multi-step synthesis of drug molecules including crystallization of the final solid formulation in a serial flow reactor assembly.
The laboratory is set up under the guidance of the Dean of School of Chemistry Prof. Ashwini Kumar Nangia, and Prof. Perali Ramu Sridhar, a synthetic carbohydrate chemist, along with their PhD students and postdocs.
“We plan to add new types of reactions such as photo and electro-chemistry in flow, which will make it possible to carry out reagent free chemical transformations”, said Prof. Nangia.
Lauding the Vice Chancellor, Prof. B J Rao said, “This facility gives us an opportunity to train the students and researchers in this field with ease.”
“I hope that this facility will also augment the relevant teaching courses by giving hands-on experience to the learners of the courses,” added the VC.
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