Flow Chemistry Projects at RCPE and University of Graz
For the past 15 years the focus of research in the Kappe laboratories has been directed towards flow chemistry/microreaction technology, encompassing a wide variety of synthetic transformations and experimental techniques. Public Funding for these initiatives has been obtained mainly from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), from the Christian Doppler Research Society (CDG), and from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), in addition to funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Founation, the ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable and many other sources (see summary below).
Out of those, the FFG COMET K-Project „Center for Continuous Flow Synthesis and Processing – CCFLOW“ (2017-2021) has been of particular importance. Most recently, major funding has been obtained by the European Union Innovative Health Initiative (EU IHI) project „Advancing Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) Practices in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing – PharmECO“ (2024-2030) which will lead to a close collaboration with many of the top pharmaceutical companies in Europe.
Apart from fundamental research on flow chemistry, microreactor technology, process intensification and continuous processing covering a wide range of scientific disciplines (i.e. photochemistry, electrochemistry, organometallic transformations, etc.), the Kappe laboratory is actively engaged in collaborations with industrial partners, mainly from the pharmaceutical sector. In addition, to develop new chemical transformations of interest to API synthesis in flow mode, one of the main objectives is to transfer batch to intensified and scalable commercial continuous processes.
Over the past 15 years collaborative flow chemistry projects with various pharmaceutical/agrochemical companies and CDMOs/CMOs have been pursued. These have led to ca. 100 joint publications with industry in addition to patents and validated flow protocols for industrial implementation (see Figure below). Some of our collaboration partners are listed below. For an overall list of our more than 250 flow chemistry publications, see here: Publications
Reference to publications (first/most recent paper) is provided with the number of overall joint publications with an industrial partner given in parenthesis.
Major Public Funding (2004-):
Austrian Science Fund (FWF: „Microwave-accelerated Catalysis in Flowthrough Reactors„, 2003-2008)
Christian Doppler Research Society (CDG: Christan Doppler Laboratories for Microwave / Flow Chemistry, 2006-2015)
Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG: COMET K-Project Center for Continuous Flow Synthesis and Processing – CCFLOW, 2017-2021; COMET Module Digital and Green (Twin) Transition of Pharmaceutical Product and Process Development – Twin4Pharma 2024-2028; Project Model-based Strategies for Realtime Control in Continuous API Manufacturing- SynthesisControl, 2019-2020; Project Intelligent Operation and Control Strategies for End-to-End Pharmaceutical Production – PharmComplete, 2022-2023)
Zukunftsfonds Steiermark (An Integrated Flow Chemistry/Process Analytical Technology Platform – INFRA FLOW, 2018)
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF: Medicines for All Institute, 2017-2021; „Electrochemical Synthesis of Key Intermediaries toward TB Medicines“, 2023-2025)
ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable (Simplified PAT Strategies for Calibration-Free Real-Time Data Gathering and Utilization in Automated Flow Chemistry Platforms, 2022-2023)