Continuous synthesis of Gabapentin with a microreaction system

In this paper, a microreaction system was developed to intensify the synthesis process of Gabapentin. Due to the high mass and heat transfer performance, Hofmann rearrangement can be achieved continuously by one-step microreaction process at relatively high temperature (40–45 °C) with a residence time (5–7 min) much shorter than the conventional 4–5 h in batch reactors. By studying the effects of concentration and temperature on the reaction rate, an apparent kinetic model was developed to help understanding the whole process deeply and optimizing the operation conditions.