Electrochemical Oscillatory Baffled Reactors Fabricated with Additive Manufacturing for Efficient Continuous-Flow Oxidations

Electrochemical continuous-flow reactors offer a great opportunity for enhanced and sustainable chemical syntheses. Here, we present a novel application of electrochemical continuous-flow oscillatory baffled reactors (ECOBRs) that combines advanced mixing features with electrochemical transformations to enable efficient electrochemical oxidations under continuous flow at a millimeter distance between electrodes. Different additive manufacturing techniques have been employed to rapidly fabricate reactors. The electrochemical oxidation of NADH, a very sensitive substrate key for the regeneration of enzymes in biocatalytic transformations, has been employed as a benchmark reaction. The oscillatory conditions improved bulk mixing, facilitating the contact of reagents to electrodes. Under oscillatory conditions, the ECOBR demonstrated improved performance in the electrochemical oxidation of NADH, which is attributed to improved mass transfer associated with the oscillatory regime.Funding for open access charge: CRUE-Universitat Jaume IProfs. Peter Licence, Alex Conradie, and Sergio Chiva Vicent are gratefully acknowledged for their insightful discussions and for support to develop this work. V.S. acknowledges the Generalitat Valenciana (CIDEGENT/2018/036) and MICINN (PID2020-119628RB-C33) for funding. E.A. and P.L. thank the MICINN (RTI2018-098233-B-C21) and Fundación SENECA CARM (20790/PI/18). R.M.-C. and R.M.-C. thank the University Jaume I for funding (UJI-B2016-52). F.P. and M.R.-F. were supported through the H2020 ERACoBioTech Programme (Project ID: 61 HOMBIOCAT) funded through the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (Grant Number BB/R021287/1). A.D. thanks the EPSRC CDT in Sustainable Chemistry (EP/L015633/1) for funding