Selectivity engineering of Meerwein arylation in a continuous flow reactor: A modelling approach

This paper presents a methodology for selectivity engineering of Meerwein arylation in a flow reactor. The reaction was optimized in batch mode and reaction kinetics were obtained over a range of temperatures and catalyst concentrations. A lumped kinetic model was formulated and the parameters were estimated using nonlinear regression. Furthermore, telescopic flow synthesis for Meerwein arylation via in situ diazonium salt generation and coupling was demonstrated. A non-isothermal model was developed and experimentally validated. The effect of initial concentration and inlet temperature on the yield of the desired product was estimated for various catalyst concentrations. The results from the simulations in terms of nondimensional numbers were used to find suitable operating conditions for Meerwein arylation.