Engineering High Reaction Economy or, An Intensification/Scoring Program for the Preparation of Simple and Complex Molecules

Success of newly discovered chemistry in academia is often scored in terms of its novelty and level of scholarship. In industrial settings, cost, safety and quality are often times the ruler by which new processes are measured. Our group has identified that there is a gap between these two measures of success and has sought to develop principles in order formalize an approach to synthetic strategy and developing ready-to-implement manufacturing processes for molecules, simple and complex. Some of these principles include (1) the development and application of new chemical methods and reactor technologies (2) recognition of globally amenable chemical environments for each chemical step to consolidate unit operations and obviate the need for purification (3) vertical integration of starting materials to generate complexity from the most elementary building blocks in a chemical supply space and (4) the development of new materials that allow for recovery and reuse. These principles are iteratively scored and redeveloped through various metrics that our group has identified as effective tools in maximizing efficiency such as cost of goods (CoG), process mass intensity (PMI) and volume-time output (VTO). The intended benefits of this approach is that these processes become not only cost effective but sustainable and impactful in the manufacturing landscape and increase access of these products to consumers