Reaction blueprints and logical control flow for parallelized chiral synthesis in the Chemputer

Despite recent proliferation of programmable robotic chemistry hardware, current chemical programming ontologies lack essential structured programming constructs like variables, functions, and loops. Herein we present an integration of these concepts into χDL, a universal high-level chemical programming language executable in the Chemputer. To achieve this, we introduce reaction blueprints as a chemical analog to functions in computer science, allowing to apply sets of synthesis operations to different reagents and conditions. We further expand χDL with logical operation queues and iteration via pattern matching. The combination of these new features allows encoding of chemical syntheses in generalized, reproducible, and parallelized digital workflows rather than opaque and entangled single-step operations. This is showcased by synthesizing chiral diarylprolinol catalysts and subsequently utilizing them in various synthetic transformations (13 separate automated runs affording 3 organocatalysts and 12 distinct enantioenriched products in 42-97% yield, up to > 99:1 er), including automated catalyst recycling and reuse.

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Publication Details

Journal
Nature Communications
Published
2024-11-26
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-54238-6
Citations
10
Primary Topic
Innovative Microfluidic and Catalytic Techniques Innovation
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
1.84

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article

Reaction blueprints and logical control flow for parallelized chiral synthesis in the Chemputer

Christian Knittl‐Frank, S. Hessam M. Mehr, Leroy Cronin, Emma Clarke et al.
10 citations
Nature Communications
Innovative Microfluidic and Catalytic Techniques Innovation
1.84
article

Reaction blueprints and logical control flow for parallelized chiral synthesis in the Chemputer

Christian Knittl‐Frank, S. Hessam M. Mehr, Leroy Cronin, Emma Clarke, Mindaugas Šiaučiulis
article en
10 citations

Abstract

Despite recent proliferation of programmable robotic chemistry hardware, current chemical programming ontologies lack essential structured programming constructs like variables, functions, and loops. Herein we present an integration of these concepts into χDL, a universal high-level chemical programming language executable in the Chemputer. To achieve this, we introduce reaction blueprints as a chemical analog to functions in computer science, allowing to apply sets of synthesis operations to different reagents and conditions. We further expand χDL with logical operation queues and iteration via pattern matching. The combination of these new features allows encoding of chemical syntheses in generalized, reproducible, and parallelized digital workflows rather than opaque and entangled single-step operations. This is showcased by synthesizing chiral diarylprolinol catalysts and subsequently utilizing them in various synthetic transformations (13 separate automated runs affording 3 organocatalysts and 12 distinct enantioenriched products in 42-97% yield, up to > 99:1 er), including automated catalyst recycling and reuse.

Nature CommunicationsVol. 15(1)
University of Glasgow (GB)
Austrian Science Fund, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Industry, innovation and infrastructure
Openalex Percentile: Top 15%
Innovative Microfluidic and Catalytic Techniques Innovation
1.84
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