Initial development for a Pd-catalyzed cross-coupling reaction was performed in jacketed lab reactors. The catalyst was highly oxygen-sensitive, and its variable performance was governed by degassing procedures. A reactor system was designed and built after discussions and recommendations from Mettler Toledo’s AutoChem and Pro divisions. The reproducibility of the reactor was demonstrated, and the reactor was used for a statistical design of experiments (DoE) to assess the impact of process parameters on reaction purity. Conditions from the DoE were successfully demonstrated at manufacturing scale, and the reaction purities aligned with conditions from the lab-scale reactions.
