Knowledge Bank

Site selective reactions are an incredibly powerful tool within chemistry. Although, bulk phase synthesis is the standard, it’s typically multistep in nature, requires the use of protecting groups, waste intensive, and even sometimes requires expensive catalysts. To combat this issue, we have implemented the platform of droplet chemistry as a new alternative platform for the site selective chlorination of arenes and heteroarenes in contrast to previous works using bulk phase synthesis. Coupling droplet chemistry with Mass Spectrometry and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance allows for optimizing product production, while allowing us to alleviate some of the common issues of bulk phase synthesis. This project allows us to understand how pre-existing reactions can be re-done using droplet chemistry, and how droplet chemistry can function as an alternative approach to organic synthesis.