The Vortex Fluidic Device (VFD)
The VFD is patented technology that represents the development of a new chemical processing space that enables new tools and stratergies with a diversity of research and industrial applications. This technology has emerged from major research efforts focused on the application of thin film microfluidics, including thin film flow chemistry. This has resulted in the ability to harness high shear forces, micro mixing and reactions beyond diffusion control to enhance and explore chemical reactivity from both a flow chemistry and batch processing point of view.
The Vortex Fluidic Device is capable of instigating chemical reactivity, materials processing and probing the stucture of self organised systems. Organic modifications to a range of motifs in a rapid and controlled fashion is achieved. The VFD has shown its capability in the synthesis of esters, amides, ureas, imines, alpha-amino phosphates, beta-Keto esters, modified amino acids and the local anaesthetic, lidocaine. There is dramatic rate enhancment in the VFD when performing these organic transformations in flow compared to traditional batch processing. The total synthesis of lidocaine was also demonstrated in a full flow system and this led to the development of a new paradigm in flow chemistry, the “assembly line process”. This process allows a molecular synthesis line to be set up in a single rotating tube. This is ideal for creating large libraries of compounds in a short time frame.
The VFD is effective in fabricating mesoporous silica under continuous flow, at room temperature, with the shear rate variation effective on controlling the pore size. It is also effective in protein folding under continuous flow, which is important in the pharmaceutical industry. And there are many other applications established, and evolving.
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A few recently articles in Nanoscales Advances and Chemical Science provide an in-depth insight into the capabilities of the VFD, those can be found at the following links:
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/NA/D1NA00195G
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/SC/D1SC05829K
