Highly Efficient Continuous Flow Reactions Using Singlet Oxygen as a “Green” Reagent

Continuous flow oxidation of substrates using singlet oxygen.


I had my doubts about including this paper in the newsletter, but finally I selected it because it shows a trend that will be more and more important in the future medicinal chemistry. Seeberger (Max Planck, Berlin, Germany) describes a simple, inexpensive flow chemistry system to carry out a reaction that in my old PhD times was a real pain in the ass: a photochemical oxidation with singlet oxygen. Their light source is a green LEDs lamp, 1 watt only… Only 6 examples are reported, but believe me, they do things that in the old (good? haha!!) days where simply tedious. Now, turn on the machine and go do something else.


The mechanism


Org. Lett., Article ASAP. See: 10.1021/ol2017643