Enantiomeric purities

Sugars usually occur in nature as polysaccharides containing one or other enantiomeric form, D or L. There are however, exceptions, fortunately few, such as the galactan (i.e. poly-galactose) from snails which produces both D- and L-galactose upon hydrolysis (93). 

Even when a successful resolution is achieved, some significant problems remain. For instance, the resolution itself does not provide information on the actual configuration of the (+) or (—) enantiomer. This must be determined by other means (see Section 19-5). Also, it is not possible to tell the enantiomeric purity (optical purity) of the resolved enantiomers without additional information. This point is discussed further in the next section. 

Exercise 19-1 Indicate the reagents you would use to resolve the following compounds. Show the reactions involved and specify the physical method you believe would be the best to separate the diastereomers. 

Exercise 19-2 Using equations, show the reactions whereby the following chiral reagents could be used to resolve aldehydes and ketones. (Review Sections 15-4E and 16-4C.) 

The term enantiomeric purity (or optical purity) is defined as the fractional excess of one enantiomer over the other. This is expressed in Equation 19-4 in terms of the moles (or weights) of the two enantiomers, and n2, and is 

Thus a racemic mixture (n1 = n2) has an enantiomeric purity of zero. Any other enantiomeric composition in principle can be determined provided the mixture has a measurable rotation and the rotation of the pure enantiomer, a0, is known. Unfortunately, there is no simple method of calculating a0 in advance. In fact, specific rotations of optically pure compounds are determined most reliably from Equation 19-4 after measurement of enantiomeric purity by independent methods. 

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Chiral diene—iron tricarbonyl complexes were acylated using aluminum chloride to give acylated diene—iron complexes with high enantiomeric purity (>96% ee). For example, /ra/ j -piperjdene—iron tricarbonyl reacted with acyl haUdes under Friedel-Crafts conditions to give l-acyl-l,3-pentadiene—iron tricarbonyl complex without any racemization. These complexes can be converted to a variety of enantiomericaHy pure tertiary alcohols (180). 

An efficient general synthesis of a-chiral (Z)- and (H)-a1kenes ia high enantiomeric purity is based on the hydroboration of alkynes and 1-bromoaIkynes, respectively, with enantiomericaHy pure IpcR BH readily available by the hydroboration of prochiral alkenes with monoisopiaocampheylborane, followed by crystallization (519). 

Integration of the peaks for the two diastereomers accurately quantifies the relative amounts of each enantiomer within the mixture. Such diastereometic derivatives may also be analy2ed by more accurate methods such as gc or hplc. One drawback to diastereometic detivatization is that it requites at least 15 mg of material, which is likely to be material painstakingly synthesized, isolated, and purified. The use of analytical chiral chromatographic methods allows for the direct quantification of enantiomeric purity, is highly accurate to above 99.8% ee, and requites less than one milligram of material. 

Theoretical plots of ee (substrate) and eep (product) as a function of c are shown in Figure 2a and b. It can be seen that the ee increases with the extent of conversion. Consequently the enantiomeric purity of the substrate can be increased by sacrificing the yield and carrying out the reaction to higher degrees of conversion. Conversely, if high purity product is required the conversion should be terminated at early stages. 

Kinetic Resolutions. From a practical standpoint the principal difference between formation of a chiral molecule by kinetic resolution of a racemate and formation by asymmetric synthesis is that in the former case the maximum theoretical yield of the chiral product is 50% based on a racemic starting material. In the latter case a maximum yield of 100% is possible. If the reactivity of two enantiomers is substantially different the reaction virtually stops at 50% conversion, and enantiomericaHy pure substrate and product may be obtained ia close to 50% yield. Convenientiy, the enantiomeric purity of the substrate and the product depends strongly on the degree of conversion so that even ia those instances where reactivity of enantiomers is not substantially different, a high purity material may be obtained by sacrificing the overall yield. 

Cyanohydrin Synthesis. Another synthetically useful enzyme that catalyzes carbon—carbon bond formation is oxynitnlase (EC 4.1.2.10). This enzyme catalyzes the addition of cyanides to various aldehydes that may come either in the form of hydrogen cyanide or acetone cyanohydrin (152—158) (Fig. 7). The reaction constitutes a convenient route for the preparation of a-hydroxy acids and P-amino alcohols. Acetone cyanohydrin [75-86-5] can also be used as the cyanide carrier, and is considered to be superior since it does not involve hazardous gaseous HCN and also virtually eliminates the spontaneous nonenzymatic reaction. (R)-oxynitrilase accepts aromatic (97a,b), straight- (97c,e), and branched-chain aUphatic aldehydes, converting them to (R)-cyanohydrins in very good yields and high enantiomeric purity (Table 10). 

Adipoyl moiety is first attached ia order to provide an appropriately spaced proximal carbonyl group. The esters are oxidized enzymatically and then deacylated. The procedure results ia the synthesis of diols (119) with excellent enantiomeric purity (ee 96—98%) ia 72—92% yield. 

The remarkable stereospecificity of TBHP-transition metal epoxidations of allylic alcohols has been exploited by Sharpless group for the synthesis of chiral oxiranes from prochiral allylic alcohols (Scheme 76) (81JA464) and for diastereoselective oxirane synthesis from chiral allylic alcohols (Scheme 77) (81JA6237). It has been suggested that this latter reaction may enable the preparation of chiral compounds of complete enantiomeric purity cf. Scheme 78) ... 

Most enzyme-catalyzed processes, such as the examples just discussed, are highly enantioselective, leading to products of high enantiomeric purity. Reactions with other chiral reagents exhibit a wide range of enantioselectivity. A fiequent objective of the smdy... 

An achiral reagent cannot distinguish between these two faces. In a complex with a chiral reagent, however, the two (phantom ligand) electron pairs are in different (enantiotopic) environments. The two complexes are therefore diastereomeric and are formed and react at different rates. Two reaction systems that have been used successfully for enantioselective formation of sulfoxides are illustrated below. In the first example, the Ti(0-i-Pr)4-f-BuOOH-diethyl tartrate reagent is chiral by virtue of the presence of the chiral tartrate ester in the reactive complex. With simple aryl methyl sulfides, up to 90% enantiomeric purity of the product is obtained. 

When partially resolved samples of 5-hydroxymethylpyrrolidin-2-one are allowed to react with benzaldehyde in the presence of an acid catalyst, two products, A (C12H13NO2) and B (C24H26N2O4), are formed. The ration A B depends on the enantiomeric purity of the starting material. When the starting material is optically pure, only A is formed. When it is racemic, only B is formed. Partially resolved material gives both A and B. The more nearly it is enantiomerically pure, the less B is formed. The products A is optically active but B is achiral. Develop an explanation for these observations, including structures for A and B. 

The ion-pair return phenomenon can also be demonstrated by comparing the rate of loss of enantiomeric purity of reactant with the rate of product formation. For a number of systems, including 1-aiylethyl tosylates, ftie rate of decrease of optical rotation is greater than the rate of product formation. This indicates the existence of an intermediate that can re-form racemic reactant. The solvent-separated ion pair is the most likely intermediate in the Winstein scheme to pl this role. 

Acylation of various oxygen functions by use of common and commercially available fluonnated carboxylic acid denvatives such as trifluoroacetic anhydride or the corresponding acyl halides have already been discussed sufficiently in the first edition [10] Therefore only exceptional observations will be described in this section In the past 15 years, many denvatizations of various nonfluonnated oxygen compounds by fluoroacylation were made for analytical purposes. Thus Mosher s acid chlorides for example became ready-to-use reagents for the determination of the enantiomeric purity of alcohols and amines by NMR or gas-liquid chromatographic (GLC) techniques [//] (equation 1)... 

It is interesting that the use of excess ligand DBFOX/Ph led to a decreased en-antioselectivity for the endo cycloadduct, especially when the enantiomeric purity of the ligand was low. This phenomenon is closely related with the chirality enrichment mechanism operating in the solution. 

With this reaction, two new asymmetric centers can be generated in one step from an achiral precursor in moderate to good enantiomeric purity by using a chiral catalyst for oxidation. The Sharpless dihydroxylation has been developed from the earlier y -dihydroxylation of alkenes with osmium tetroxide, which usually led to a racemic mixture. 

Authenticity evaluation has recently received increased attention in a number of industries. The complex mixtures involved often require very high resolution analyses and, in the case of determining the authenticity of natural products, very accurate determination of enantiomeric purity. Juchelka et al. have described a method for the authenticity determination of natural products which uses a combination of enantioselective multidimensional gas chromatography with isotope ratio mass spectrometry (28). In isotope ratio mass spectrometry, combustion analysis is combined with mass spectrometry, and the ratio of the analyte is measured versus a... 

The enantiomeric purity that can be obtained as a function of a for one, two, and three stages is given in Table 8-1. It is apparent that the higher the a value, the fewer the number of separations stages required to reach 99 % enantiomeric purity. For an a value of 5, the use of three stages allows one to obtain > 99 % purity. The required purity of the end-product defines the minimum performance requirement of the resin. 

Table 8-1. Enantiomeric purity obtained as a function of a values nonchromatographic systems. > 4 and separation stages for...

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