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Catalyst-free biphasic oxidation of Thiophenes in continuous-flow

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Abstract

A mild and practical oxidation process of thiophene derivatives in continuous-flow has been developed. The oxidant phase consists of mCPBA and acetonitrile, which formed an immiscible liquid-liquid segmented flow with the fuel phase. In the oxidation of thiophenes, high yields of sulfone could be realized with only 10 min of residence time in the microreactor. The oxidant phase can be separated with the fuel phase with a continuous membrane separator, rendering it a clean and potentially scalable method to facilitate fuel refining.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 21872068) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant 0205-14380182).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Su Wang, Yeersen Patehebieke, Zheng Zhou, Zhibing Zhang & Xiao Wang

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  1. Su Wang
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  2. Yeersen Patehebieke
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  3. Zheng Zhou
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  4. Zhibing Zhang
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  5. Xiao Wang
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Contributions

S.W. and Y.P. carried out the experiments and analysis, and contributed equally to this work. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zheng Zhou or Xiao Wang.

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Wang, S., Patehebieke, Y., Zhou, Z. et al. Catalyst-free biphasic oxidation of Thiophenes in continuous-flow. J Flow Chem 10, 597–603 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41981-020-00102-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41981-020-00102-9

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