Microwave flow chemistry: the next evolutionary step in synthetic chemistry?

Microwave assisted chemistry is an increasingly important tool in the medicinal chemist's quest to speed up drug development. With the development of commercial focussed-microwave reactors, reactions can be carried out safely and reproducibly at a useful laboratory scale. Attention is now fuming to the scale-up of these processes with chemists increasingly investigating continuous flow applications. This review intends to highlight the significant benefits in terms of efficiency and control that flow-based microwave applications offer modem organic synthesis.