Patent ID: 7112450

Claim:
A method of conducting R chemical reactions, where R is a positive integer, in a system which includes an apparatus which provides energy for the chemical reactions, said system also including a parameter selecting unit having a user interface and storage means for carrying a database, said chemical reaction involving one or more chemical species X B and resulting in a reaction product X D which includes a functionality δ, where the chemical reaction involves one or more functionalities β in the X B's which are transformed into δ in X D, each reaction being performed under the influence of one or more corresponding chemical substances A R , such chemical substances A R including a chemical functionality α R being involved in the transformation of the functionality/functionalities β to the functionality δ, said database comprising N sets of associated data, each of the N sets comprising: i) a set of reaction parameters for a chemical reaction involving the transformation of one or more functionalities N δ of chemical species N B into N δ in a product N D under the influence of one or more chemical substances N A, such chemical substance(s) each including a chemical functionality N α being involved in the transformation of the functionality N δ to the functionality N δ; and ii) functional or structural information about the chemical species N B; the method comprising: providing information to the user interface of the parameter selection unit about the functionality/functionalities δ in the chemical species X B; providing information to the user interface of the parameter selection unit about the desired transformation of β to δ; retrieving R sets of associated data (Σ R ) from the database in the parameter selection unit without user interface, such sets of associated data being selected so that the functionality/functionalities N β in each set of associated data is/are essentially identical to the functionality/functionalities β in X B and the functionality N δ is essentially identical to δ in the product X D, in order to obtain the R sets of reaction parameters ( X Σ R ), said R sets of reaction parameters ( X Σ R ) being accompanied by corresponding information about the chemical substance(s) A R under which influence the R reactions should be conducted and information about any additional constituents involved in the chemical reaction; preparing an array of R reaction mixtures each comprising a predetermined amount of the chemical substance(s) A R and the chemical species X B and any additional constituents required according to the sets of reaction parameters; and treating each of the R reaction mixtures in the apparatus in accordance with the corresponding set of reaction parameters in order to conduct the R chemical reactions.