Nanocellulose sponges as efficient continuous flow reactors.

In this paper, we demonstrated an efficient continuous flow reactor packed with nanocellulose sponges made from the sustainable wood pulp. The key component of such reactor, a wood pulp derived nanocellulose sponge loaded with metal catalysts, exhibited high porosity and interconnected porous structure, providing low flow resistance and long-term stability to the flow reactors. The packing material showed good performance in Huisgen cycloaddition in both batch and continuous flow systems. Key comparisons between two systems including reaction kinetics, operating conditions and safety were particularly discussed. Various triazoles have been afforded with >99% conversion, even for gram scale reaction in flow systems. The continuous flow reactors we developed were easily derivatized, thus forming a general, economic and readily scalable platform as promising synthesis tools.