Enantioselective Distillations and Foam Flotation

Among the existing separation techniques, some - due to their intrinsic characteristics - are more adapted than others to processing large amounts of material. Such processes, which already exist at industrial level, can be considered in order to perform an enantioselective separation. This is the case for techniques such as distillation and foam flotation, both of which constitute well-known techniques that can be adapted to the separation of enantiomers. The involvement of a chiral selector can be the clue which changes a nonstereoselective process into an enantioselective one. Clearly, this selector must be adapted to the characteristics and limitations of the process itself. 

Several chiral selectors have been used in the separation of enantiomers by distillation [198]. Among them, the bisalcohol 8 (Fig. 1-6) has permitted obtainment of the ketone (+)-9 with an enantiomeric excess of 95 %. This example shows the feasibility of the process even though, in this particular case, the price of the chiral selector might prohibit scale-up of the separation. 

In another example of enantioselective distillation, it was the enantiomeric mixture to resolve itself which contributed to create a chiral environment. Thus, non-racemic mixtures of a-phenylethylamine were enantiomerically enriched by submitting to distillation different salts of this amine with achiral acids [199]. 

All enantioselective separation techniques are based on submitting the enantiomeric mixture to be resolved to a chiral environment. This environment is usually created by the presence of a chiral selector able to interact with both enantiomers of the mixture, albeit with different affinities. These differences in the enantiomer-selector association will finally result in the separation that is sought. 

Ideal chiral selectors to be used in preparative separations should fulfil certain properties. In general, high loadability is one of the most interesting features for large-scale purposes, but high enantioselectivity, high chemical stability, low cost and broad applicability are also very important issues. None of these properties can be considered independently. 

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