Photocatalytic materials for cartridge and microchannel flow reactors
During the research of the ERC-funded project UNBICAT (ERC-CoG, contract number 647550), the Principal Investigator, and his research group have developed new photocatalysts and their application in different organic transformations. A recent development of the project has been the preparation of new photocatalysts and their immobilization onto different materials, making them heterogeneous catalysts. These heterogeneous photocatalysts are able to produce chemicals and products of interest to the chemical industry. Therefore, the heterogeneous photocatalysts developed in this project are expected to become valuable tools for the production of chemicals under more sustainable and milder conditions. The aim of the present Proof of Concept (PoC) project is to study their implementation in cartridges and microchannel reactors for flow chemistry. For this purpose, reaction optimization to scale-up the current mg-scale synthesis of the heterogeneous photocatalysts, and their incorporation onto cartridges and microchannel reactors will be carried out. In addition, the photocatalytic performance of the devices in the preparation of chemicals and products of interest to the industry will be validated using flow chemistry. This PoC project will also contain an analysis of the intellectual property and patent filing procedure required to protect the inventions within the field of synthesis and application of the catalyst. Additionally, a market analysis to identify potential industrial partners will be conducted. These photocatalytic cartridges and microchannel reactors will be valuable tools in different fields of the chemical industry for manufacturing chemicals, but also in academia for the preparation of products and to address other novel transformations.