Some of nature’s most beautiful creations are also the most dangerous — and the same is true in chemistry. In what could be called a Toxic Bloom, highly reactive reagents like phosgene, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen cyanide, or fluorine offer tremendous synthetic potential, yet are often avoided in traditional batch chemistry due to extreme safety risks.
Yet these substances are often exactly what’s needed: delivering outstanding reactivity, atom economy, and cost efficiency. The challenge is not whether to use them — it’s how to use them safely. That’s where flow chemistry comes in.
Flow systems allow chemists to handle even the most hazardous reagents with unmatched control, from lab development to pilot and production scale. By operating under pressurized conditions, the solubility of gaseous reagents in the liquid phase increases dramatically — in some cases, eliminating gas-phase presence entirely. This leads to significantly improved mass transfer, space-time yield, and ultimately, smaller reactor footprints.
What once was too dangerous to even consider becomes a viable and scalable option — elegantly contained and precisely controlled.
In short: the chemistry that blooms from dangerous reagents is no longer off-limits. With the right technology, even the most toxic transformations can be handled safely — and beautifully — in flow.
