It’s time to meet up at the Palais des Congrès for the XVIII edition of the Belgian Organic Chemistry Symposium. We’ve worked hard all year to prepare another great edition of this world-renowned conference in Organic Chemistry. Among the things to look forward to: the master class for Tetrahedron Chair Sarah Reisman; the conferring of the Janssen Prize to Melanie Sanford; Poster prizes from both the RSC and the ACS; and an amazing line up of speakers from all over the world.

Hope to see many of you soon here in Liege!

The lab now counts with a pilot scale flow reactor from Ehrfeld: the Miprowa Matrix! The Matrix is a great complement to the commercial pilot scale flow reactors from Corning available at the lab and opens the door to new chemistry trials. It’s an important addition to the FloW4all Flow Technology Resource Center, offering services in flow chemistry to the industrial and the academic research community. You can see more information at: www.flow4all.uliege.be !

Presenting new CiTOS member: François Mazars! After obtaining a master in green chemistry at the University of Toulouse in France, he completed his PhD in organometallic chemistry in the Laboratory of Catalysis at the University of Liège. Now, he joins the CiTOS as a postdoctoral researcher and teaching assistant. He will work on the neutralization of chemical warfare agents under continuous flow.
It’s great to have François with us! May you enjoy the wonderful world of flow chemistry!

We are happy to welcome Matteo Salvi, a PhD student in organic chemistry from the University of Siena (Italy) and is carrying out his research work at the CNR-ICCOM in Florence (Italy). His PhD work is part of a collaboration with the pharmaceutical company Dipharma Francis S.r.l, based in Milan (Italy).

Now, Matteo is joining CiTOS as visiting researcher as part of his PhD program. His stay will be a great opportunity to supplement his knowledge in organic chemistry with skills in flow synthesis. During his 6-month stay, he will be giving some welcome support on our ongoing industrial collaborations.

We wish Matteo all the best for his stay in Liege!

Our lab has now been equipped with two automized Vapoutec systems, ready to perform new projects in flow chemistry! Our reactor are equipped in PFA, Stainless-steel and Hastelloy reactor coils, and are ready to pump anything in high-pressure, with corrosive feed solutions or feed containing  suspensions. Automatic collectors and online detectors allow us to perform multiple pre-programmed reactions.

To be honest, at CiTOS we typically build the reactors ourselves. And we will continue to do so! But considering Vapourtec’s reputation and broad use in industrial settings, we decided to add this impressive equipment to our facilities and thus increase our offerings to our partners.

The Vapourtec team is super helpful and we are happy to count on their support as well.

We are thrilled to learn about JC’s award from Corning Advanced Flow Reactors! It’s been a little over 10 years since the beginning of CiTOS. During this time, the lab has grown significantly, in number of members, amount of equipment, but most importantly, in contributions to science and the field of flow chemistry.  The prize comes to crown this growth and has been highly celebrated by the lab and our friends. The Corning International Prize for Outstanding Work in Continuous-Flow Reactors has been awarded only once before to Prof. Klavs Jensen from MIT.

Jean-Christophe Monbaliu was among the speakers of this year’s Flow Chemistry European Summit, which took place last March 25-26 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Through his talk, he shared his experience on the synergy that exists between computational and flow chemistry. This combination of expertise is one of the core research values of the lab and encompasses some of the most important contributions of JC’s work. It was also a great opportunity also to catch up with other researchers in the field and build the flow chemistry community. 

Arthur, Cassian, and Nicolas! These three young new members of CiTOS will be working on their master’s thesis during the next year. Arthur will be teaming up with Hubert to work on the synthesis of APIs from biobased sources. Nicolas is now part of the Wel T research team, along with Réjane and Jingxing. And Cassain is tackling new reactions using dinitrogen trioxide with Yuesu. They’ve been off to a good start and are a great addition to the CiTOS team! We have high hopes for our young new members!

Last January, we had the arrival of two new PhD students at the lab! Réjane and Jingxing are teaming up to work on a Wel Research Institute funded project to develop the synthesis of APIs. However, the crucial aspect of this project is the capacity to predict reaction conditions based on DFT calculations and machine learning, which will be the main goal of Jingxing’s thesis work. On the other hand, Réjane will focus on implementing reaction conditions in an in-house built automation system.

It’s a challenging project, with a high potential impact for the future of flow chemistry. Stay tuned to hear more updates on this work!

Flow Chemistry Europe, the meeting of the the Flow Chemistry Society took place last week in Malaga, Spain! JC was there to present some of the latest work from the lab. We encourage you to go to the official website and check out the photos https://flowchemistryeurope.com/.

Aside from a wonderful conference, the FCE had a beautiful venue. We’re happy to share with our followers some of the nice pictures that JC took during that trip.