In Africa around 625 000 mortalities per annum (20% of HIV/AIDS related deaths) are due to the affects of the Cryptococcal meningitis (CM) fungal infection. Recently, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) recommended that the first line treatment for CM is a combination of amphotericin B and flucytosine, both now WHO Essential Medicines. However, flucytosine is not even registered for use in any African nation due, in part, to its relatively high cost of manufacture and lack of generic manufacturers. Currently, flucytosine is manufactured by an expensive four-step manufacturing process.Here we report a one-step continuous flow process involving the reaction of inexpensive cytosine with fluorine gas using stainless steel tubular laboratory and pilot-scale silicon carbide reactor devices which is readily scaleable to a manufacturing process with a low initial capital expenditure.

BACKGROUND Nowadays, developing continuous enzymatic processes, especially when a two‐phase medium is required, remains a great challenge. So, there is a need to provide a technical solution for generating highly controlled interfacial area in a small volume. In this study, four types of reactors conventionally used for chemical process intensification and marketed by Corning, Chart Industries, NiTech Solutions and AM Technology, were tested for continuous lipase‐catalysed esterification in two‐phase medium. RESULTS The NiTech oscillating reactor proved to be the more efficient to transform the input mechanical power into mass transfer performance while proposing easily adjustable residence time. Nevertheless, Corning and Chart heat‐exchanger reactors were shown to be very suitable candidates even if mass transfer performances depend on the flow‐rate and therefore are not uncoupled from the residence time. This results in a less convenient choice of operating conditions. The Coflore system was not so convincing but it may be due to the injection device not well adapted to this system. CONCLUSION This work demonstrates that novel technologies, recently proposed for intensification of chemical processes, are indeed very suitable and provide a relevant alternative to conventional processes for enzymatic reactions and therefore for two‐phase reactions limited by the interfacial area value. Also, it has been shown here that the model reaction considered could be a simple way to characterize mass transfer performances of these technologies. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry

A glycerol colloidal solution of palladium nanoparticles stabilized by PVP (PdPVP, mean diameter of 2.2 ± 0.8 × 10 −9 m) was employed under flow conditions for hydrogenation reactions. After optimization, we selected the tube-in-tube flow reactor as the more suitable system for this catalytic process due to its ability to regulate the addition of hydrogen. PdPVP nanoparticles were synthesized and fully characterized ((HR)-TEM, PXRD, EA, and ICP) both in glycerol solution and at solid state. The reduction of different substrates, including nitrobenzene, 4-phenylbut-3-en-2-one, and isophorone, was achieved under relatively smooth conditions (5-7 × 10 5 Pa of H 2) in short times (<600 s). Unfortunately, the reduction of 1-dodecene was not possible due to the faster isomerization reaction. The optimal effusion of hydrogen in the colloidal phase together with the catalytic efficiency of this system is noteworthy.