Photochemistry, Spectroscopy and Supercritical Fluids

Photochemistry and electrochemistry are potentially very powerful tools for manufacturing not least because energy is delivered to reacting molecules far more selectively than by bulk heating in an atom efficient manner. Indeed, more than a century ago, Ciamician, presented a very powerful vision of where photochemistry could lead us [Science 1912, 36, 385-394]. Since then, photochemistry has become a major strand of chemical research in academia. By comparison, its penetration into chemical manufacture remains comparatively modest because of a whole series of issues, mostly centred on the problems of carrying out large-scale photochemical reactions both efficiently and safely. In recent years we have been addressing some of the challenges of making photochemistry and electrochemical synthesis greener, more energy efficient and more widely accessible. This presentation will cover our activity particularly aiming for generic approaches for linking and scaling up multi-step processes in the context of photo-, electro- and thermal- chemistry on the kg/day scale with emphasis on simple reactor designs for using both visible and UV irradiation particularly focussed on continuous photo-redox and oxidative and reductive electrochemical processes enabling 1-10 kg/day productivity in Taylor Vortex reactors with a very small footprint [1-5]. Existing and new PAT approaches that exploit autonomous flow reactors and self-optimisation will be discussed with the aim of improving sensitivity, specificity, dynamic range and the speed of data acquisition, to be coupled with AI innovations.