A new technique for the preparation of a highly clear and transparent emulsified aqueous solution containing immiscible monomer droplets with diameters of a few tens of nanometres under surfactant-free conditions using tandem acoustic emulsification is described. Highly conductive transparent polymer films were successfully prepared from such an emulsified solution.

A new approach for the green synthesis of α-amino acids using electrochemical carboxylation of imines in a flow microreactor is described. This method has the major advantage of not requiring sensitive, expensive, or toxic reagents. In addition, the reaction could be conducted using single flow-through operations, without the need for sacrificial anodes and under very mild and green conditions. Our microreactor system enabled the electrochemical synthesis of N-phenylphenylglycine derivatives in good to moderate yields.

We have successfully demonstrated that a microflow reactor is extremely useful in controlling reactions involving an unstable o-benzoquinone. The key features of the method are an effective o-benzoquinone generation and its rapid use for the following reaction without decomposition in a microflow system.

In order to develop an efficient and greener method for organic chemical hydride production in the energy carrier system, the electrocatalytic hydrogenation of toluene to methylcyclohexane was carried out using a proton exchange membrane (PEM) reactor, which generally applied a polymer electrolyte fuel cell and industrial electrolysis technologies. The electrochemical conversion proceeded in high current efficiencies (>90%) under sufficiently mild conditions with various metal-supported catalysts such as Pt/C, Rh/C, Ru/C, and PtRu/C. For example, methylcyclohexane was obtained in 94% current efficiency by the electrochemical hydrogenation of toluene with PtRu/C. Although the current efficiency of the hydrogenation with Pt/C, Rh/C, and Ru/C apparently decreased under high current density conditions due to the side reaction (hydrogen evolution), the hydrogenation with PtRu/C catalysts proceeded in excellent efficiencies even under high current density conditions.