Highly reactive chemistry describes chemical reactions that are challenging to handle and develop due to the potentially hazardous and/or energetic nature of the reactants, intermediates and products that are present during synthesis. These chemistries often involve highly exothermic reactions which require specialized equipment or extreme operating conditions (such as low temperature) to ensure adequate control. Ensuring safe operating conditions and gaining the maximum amount of information from each experiment are key factors in successfully designing and scaling-up highly reactive chemistries.
One challenge is that sampling the reactor contents during the reaction is often impractical or impossible under the desired operating conditions. In addition, as highly reactive materials are often unstable, the accuracy of any possible offline analysis is often limited.