The aim of the Flow Chemistry group (a.k.a. the Noël Research Group) is to build bridges between chemical engineering and organic synthetic chemistry. Consequently, long-standing problems in synthetic chemistry can be overcome, which includes scalability, gas-liquid reactions, photochemistry, electrochemistry and the generation and use of hazardous reagents. This allows us to effectively expand the available chemical space by bringing overlooked or avoided reagents into play.

Microreactors are at the heart of our research. Their many advantages, such as faster mixing and high reliability, make them perfectly suitable for carrying out chemical processes in a controlled manner. They are also highly scalable, even up to industrial scale. We have put our extensive experience with microreactors to use in catalysis, in the synthesis of pharmaceutical ingredients, for instance using an 'artificial leaf' solar concentrator: