Ibuprofen was prepared from an inactive and inexpensive p-xylene by three-step flow functionalizations through chemoselective metalations of benzyl positions in sequence using an in situ generated LICKOR-type superbase. The flow approach in the microreactor facilitated the comprehensive exploration of over 100 conditions in the first-step reaction by varying concentrations, temperatures, solvents, and equivalents of reagents, enabling optimal conditions to be found with 95 % yield by significantly suppressing the formation of byproducts, followed by the second C−H metalation step in 95 % yield. Moreover, gram-scale synthesis of ibuprofen in the final step was achieved by biphasic flow reaction of solution-phase intermediate with CO2, isolating 2.3 g for 10 min of operation time.

• POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology)
• Korea University

• API

1. API
2. biphasic flow reaction
3. chemoselective metalations
4. LICKOR-type superbase
5. Multistep flow synthesis
6. Research Article