An integrated resource-efficient microfluidic device for parallelised studies of immobilised chiral catalysts in continuous flow via miniaturized LC/MS-analysis

Abstract

A highly integrated microfluidic device is presented for the parallelised study of stereoselective heterogeneous catalytic processes. For the first time, multiple packed-bed μ-flow reactors are combined with a chiral separation unit on a chip that is seamlessly connected to mass spectrometry. By developing an automated fluidic setup, this device allows the performance of different catalysts to be studied in a single run, using only small amounts of resources. In this way, fully automated quasi-simultaneous testing of 2-packed bed reactors for enantioselectivity and conversion is possible, with a significant reduction in solvent and substrate consumption compared to classical tube reactor HPLC-MS testing.