Optical resolution of racemic alcohols
OwnerJunichi Oda, Masaki Amano +2inventors
InventorsJunichi Oda, Masaki Amano, Haruhiko Toda, Toshiyuki Koyagi
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A racemic alcohol is subjected to the optical resolution by irreversibly esterifying one of the two antipodes of the racemic alcohol with an acid anhydride or enol ester of a carboxylic acid in a organic solvent in the presence of a hydrolase. This optical resolution uses a non-aqueous organic solvent in which the hydrolase is insoluble and involves an irreversible esterification, thus permitting an efficient optical resolution and improving recovery and re-usability of the hydrolase.
Claims7
A method for resolving a racemic secondary alcohol into its two antipodes, comprising the steps of:
- reacting a racemic secondary alcohol selected from the group consisting of 2-heptanol, 2-octanol, 2-nonanol, 2-decanol, (R,S)-3-chloro-1-p-toluenesulfonyloxy-2-propanol, (R,S)-1-phenylethanol, (R,S)-1-phenyl-2-chloroethanol, (R,S)-mandelonitrile and phenylethylene glycol with an esterifying agent selected from the group consisting of an acid anhydride and an enol ester of a carboxylic acid in an organic solvent in the presence of a hydrolase to esterify one of the antipodes of the racemic secondary alcohol with the esterifying agent, so that a reaction mixture containing the esterified antipode and unreacted antipode is formed;
- and
- separating either the esterified antipode or unreacted antipode from said reaction mixture.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.