Electroorganic chemistry can enable new reactivity and eliminate toxic reactants, but the need for the reaction to take place at a surface can make it challenging to scale up production. This work explores how the use of a flow cell with custom carbon-based electrodes can increase the productivity (mol/h) of a TEMPO-mediated azidooxygenation reaction. A 3.8-fold higher productivity was achieved by switching from a batch to flow reactor (both used carbon paper electrodes) due to the increase of mass transport to the electrode surface. Three custom carbon electrodes, sintered carbon paper, carbon nanofiber, and carbon microfiber-nanofiber composite, were studied to determine the effect of electrode structure on the productivity of the reaction. These electrodes increased the reaction productivity by 5.4, 6.5 and 7.8 times, respectively. The batch reactor with carbon paper obtained a yield of 75% in 5 hours. The flow reactor with a microfiber-nanofiber electrode obtained a yield of 81% in 36 minutes. These findings demonstrate that the use of 3D porous flow-through electrodes can substantially improve the productivity of a TEMPO-mediated electroorganic reaction.

Intensification of electrochemical azidooxygenation with a flow-through electrode

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