With aspects of continuous processing featuring heavily in efforts towards increasing the ‘green’ prospects of pharmaceutical and fine chemical manufacturing, this article focuses on the developments made into the application of continuous flow reactors for sustainable chemical research and production.

This tutorial review describes how micro reactors are being applied to synthetic chemistry covering a wide range of applications, from the preparation of nanograms of material for drug discovery and screening to the multi-tonne production of fine chemicals. This article explores how miniaturisation may revolutionise chemical synthesis and demonstrates that products are generated in higher yield and purity compared to the equivalent bulk reactions, in much shorter periods of time.

Although in its infancy, the field of micro reaction technology is growing rapidly, with many research groups investigating the practical advantages associated with reaction miniaturisation. With this in mind, the following Feature Article aims to provide an overview of the progress made in the past decade, paying particular attention to the field of synthetic organic chemistry.

It is the intention of this review to provide the reader with a survey of the current literature pertaining to the use of micro reactors in synthetic chemistry; recent advances are briefly discussed, with references provided to assist with further reading on this rapidly growing research topic.

A general outlook of the changing face of chemical synthesis is provided in this article through recent applications of continuous flow processing in both industry and academia.

Reviewing the open literature, the authors give their perspective on if continuous process technology has a role to play in sustainable production within the chemical industry.