I am a final year PhD student under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Marcus Baumann at University College Dublin (UCD) through SSPC. My research focuses on the use of a continuous flow platform to improve the safety, scalability, and productivity of under utilised reactions. I recently got the opportunity to be a visiting PhD student in Bari, Italy under the supervision of Professor Renzo Luisi where my work with flow technology continued.
We generated a hypervalent iodine species (iodonitrene) in situ using aqueous ammonia (nitrogen source) and (diacetoxyiodo)benzene (iodine source). This species enabled nitrogen insertion into a range of unreactive substrates to access nitriles, aziridines, and isoquinolines in under one minute.
Interestingly, by using the same species we could perform nitrogen extrusion of pyrrolidines to access cyclobutanes again with a residence time of less than one minute. Working abroad and in a different group brought many new challenges which have tremendously benefitted my learning as a researcher. It allowed me to put what I’ve learned in UCD to the test while absorbing a new style of research in the Luisi group. This invaluable experience will always stand out to me as an incredibly enjoyable chapter of my PhD.
I’m very grateful to my supervisor Assoc. Prof. Marcus Baumann for co-ordinating this opportunity, to Prof. Renzo Luisi and the other members of the Luisi group for kindly hosting me in their lab, and to SSPC for their continued support during this period. I look forward to returning to Bari in May to present this work at the Italian Flow Chemistry Symposium.
