Magnetic field-enhanced redox chemistry on-the-fly for enantioselective synthesis

Abstract

Chemistry on-the-fly is an interesting concept, extensively studied in recent years due to its potential use for recognition, quantification and conversion of chemical species in solution. In this context, chemistry on-the-fly for asymmetric synthesis is a promising field of investigation, since it can help to overcome mass transport limitations, present for example in conventional organic electrosynthesis. Herein, the synergy between a magnetic field-enhanced self-electrophoretic propulsion mechanism and enantioselective redox chemistry on-the-fly is proposed as an efficient method to boost stereoselective conversion. We employ Janus swimmers as redox-active elements, exhibiting a well-controlled clockwise or anticlockwise motion with a speed that can be increased by one order of magnitude in the presence of an external magnetic field. While moving, these bifunctional objects convert spontaneously on-the-fly a prochiral molecule into a specific enantiomer with high enantiomeric excess. The magnetic field-enhanced self-mixing of the swimmers, based on the formation of local magnetohydrodynamic vortices, leads to a significant improvement of the reaction yield and the conversion rate.