The American Chemical Society’s Green Chemistry Institute identified continuous flow manufacturing of pharmaceuticals to be a potentially transformative technology to make organic synthesis of small molecules faster, greener, safer, and smaller. But it requires a major mindset shift by a well established industry to go from batch to flow (continuous) synthesis. This project will evaluate the benefits of flow chemistry for a pharmaceutical process by developing laboratory experiments that will be used in undergraduate, graduate and workforce training courses. The case studies will be developed in collaboration with industrial partners.

Faculty Advisor: Andrew R. Teixeira | WPI (Chemical Engineering)

Teacher Component: The teacher will research, construct and test protocols for bench scale chemistry in continuous flow reactors and separators. Example activities will include running batch experiments to measure kinetics, then using those results to size, cut, and assemble tubular flow reactors with the appropriate pumps and analytical equipment. The teacher will also be exposed to good chemical practice, engineering calculations, analytical equipment (FTIR, GC-MS, etc.). They will also participate in weekly subgroup and full group meetings with the Teixeira Lab.