Continuous Flow Chemistry InnovationsThalesNano and METTLER TOLEDO announced a collaboration to combine their existing technologies to offer flow reactor technology with real time reaction monitoring for faster reaction optimization and improved continuous process production. The customer-driven collaboration will result in the integration of ThalesNano’s entire flow reactor line with the METTLER TOLEDO ReactIR DS Micro Flow Cell system to take continuous flow chemistry beyond where it is today.
The pairing of ThalesNano’s best in class flow reactor technology with the market leading reaction monitoring system, ReactIR, will allow chemists to observe what is happening in their reaction in real time and modify reaction parameters “on the fly” to improve yield or selectivity within minutes. The combined systems can also be applied to reactions where toxic/dangerous intermediates may be generated. Inline reaction monitoring can notify the user whether all the intermediate has been reacted to make these reactions safer for chemists.
The integrated system can also be applied to large scale synthesis: when integrated with the H-Cube Midi or H-Cube Maxi, process or production chemists may monitor catalyst activity during the reaction and change to a fresh catalyst bed when conversion drops below an acceptable level due to catalyst poisoning. This will ensure high purity product, avoiding the expense of unnecessary purification. The strategic relationship allows the two market leading companies in this field to combine to support the further development of one of the fastest growing areas in chemistry: flow chemistry.
“We are very excited to work with METTLER TOLEDO, the world leader in the process monitoring field, to make this revolutionary hybrid technology available to both of our customer bases,” said Laszlo Urge, CEO of ThalesNano. “The two flow-based technologies are so complimentary that minimal integration efforts are needed to combine them, meaning that current ReactIR users or ThalesNano customers may take advantage of this new application with virtually no system downtime: ThalesNano customers can get immediate access to online analytics and METTLER TOLEDO customers are provided with an easy way to start exploiting the benefits of flow chemistry.”
“By focusing on providing a complete solution, the two companies will jointly identify and develop a robust, cost effective offering to meet the developing needs of our customers,” said Henry Dubina, Head of METTLER TOLEDO AutoChem “Continuous chemistry has emerged as an important tool in the development and manufacturing of chemical based processes. ReactIR, our in situ Fourier Transform Infrared Monitoring (FTIR) spectroscopy system, has been established as a critical technique to allow the scientist to quickly and accurately determine steady state dispersion characteristics, reactive intermediates, reaction initiation and identify process upsets. The combination of these two technologies should result in even higher yields, reduced impurities and significant time and cost savings for our users.”
ThalesNano is the world leader in bench-top flow chemistry reactors. The company has the widest portfolio of bench top continuous process instruments for the pharmaceutical, biotech, fine chemical, petroleum/biofuel, and education markets. Its R&D 100 award winning H-Cube® and scale-up system H-Cube Midi™ are used in hundreds of laboratories globally and have become the new industry standard for hydrogenation. Within three years from the original introduction of its flagship H-Cube product, 20 out of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies have introduced and adopted the technology.