Development of a modular photoreactor for the upscaling of continuous flow photochemistry

The upscaling of biphasic photochemical reactions is challenging because of the inherent constraints of liquid-gas mixing and light penetration. Using semi-permeable coaxial flow chemistry within a modular photoreactor, the photooxidation of the platform chemical furfural was scaled up to produce routinely 29 gram per day of biobased building block hydroxybutenolide, a precursor to acrylate alternatives.