Hydrogenation ephedrine

Attempts had been made from 1904 onwards to synthesise ephedrine or ephedrine-like substances, but it was not imtil 1920 that two substances now generally accepted as optieally inactive forms of ephedrine and i/i-ephedrine were obtained by Eberhard. The proeess used was the reduetion of a-methylaminopropiophenone by (a) sodium amalgam and dilute hydrochloric acid and (b) hydrogen in presenee of palladised ehareoal ... 

The (ZZ-ephedrine was resolved into its components by the use of d-and Z-mandelic acids. In 1921 Neuberg and Hirsch showed that benz-aldehyde was reduced by yeast, fermenting in suerose or glueose solution to benzyl aleohol and a phenylpropanolone, which proved to be Z-Ph. CHOH. CO. CH3. This ean be simultaneously, or consecutively, eondensed with methylamine and then eonverted to Z-ephedrine by reduction, e.g., with aluminium amalgam in moist ether, or by hydrogen in presenee of platinic oxide as catalyst (Knoll, Hildebrant and Klavehn ). 

The diastereoselectivity and the stereochemical outcome of the addition of 2,3,4,6-tetrahydro-3, 4-dimethyl-2-phenyl-1,4-oxazepine-5,7-dione, derived from ephedrine and methyl hydrogen malonate, to 1 -nitrocyclohexene was found to be dependent on the nature of the base and the solvent. The highest diastereoselectivity was obtained when potassium /tr/-butoxide in the presence of dicyclohcxyl-18-crown-6 was employed. In the absence of crown ether the diastereoselection was poor and the sense of the stereochemical outcome was reversed26. 

Ephedrine is the principal active ingredient in the herb ephedra, or ma huang. It is similar in form to the appetite-control drug phenylpropanolamine (banned in the United States), which is also known as norephedrine, meaning ephedrine whose methyl group has been replaced by a hydrogen. 

In the same study, these authors have prepared another series of amino-sulf(ox)ide ligands based on the (Nor)ephedrine and 2-aminodiphenylethanol skeletons, bearing two chiral centres in the carbon backbone.Their application to the iridium-catalysed hydrogen-transfer reduction of acetophenone generally gave better yields, but the enantioselectivity never exceeded 65% ee (Scheme 9.4). 

New modifiers have traditionally been discovered by the trial-and-error method. Many naturally occurring chiral compounds (the chiral pool38) have been screened as possible modifiers. Thus, the hydrogenation product of the synthetic drug vinpocetine was discovered to be a moderately effective modifier of Pt and Pd for the enantioselective hydrogenation of ethyl pyruvate and isophorone.39 Likewise, ephedrine, emetine, strychnine, brucine, sparteine, various amino acids and hydroxy acids, have been identified as chiral modifiers of heterogeneous catalysts.38... 

P-Nitro alcohols can be hydrogenated to the corresponding amino alcohols with retention of configuration the stereoselective Henry reaction is a useful tool in the elaboration of pharmacologically important P-amino alcohol derivatives including chloramphenicol, ephedrine, norephedrine, and others. Some important P-amino alcohols are listed in Scheme 3.11.107... 

BINAP Ru catalyst and (lR,25 )-ephedrine (Scheme 8-53). This result is similar to that obtained when catalyzed by pure (R)-BINAP. In pure (R)-BINAP complex-catalyzed hydrogenation, (S )-2-cyclohexenol can also be obtained with over 95% ee. This means that in the presence of (R)-BINAP-Ru catalyst, (R)-cyclohexenol is hydrogenated much faster than its (S )-enantiomer. When ephedrine is present, (R)-BINAP-Ru will be selectively deactivated, and the action of (S -BINAP-Ru leads to the selective hydrogenation of (S)-2-cyclohexenol, leaving the intact (R)-2-cyclohexenol in high ee. 

In 1969, Fiaud and Kagan[U1 tested ephedrine boranes but achieved only 3.6-5% enantiomeric excess in the reduction of acetophenone. Itsuno et a/.[121 reported in 1981 an interesting enantioselective reduction of a ketone using an amino alcohol-borane complex as a catalyst. Buono[131 investigated and developed the reactivity of phosphorus compounds as ligands in borane complexes for asymmetric hydrogenation. 

Methamphetamine Methamphetamine, (+)-N-a-dimethylphenylethylamine (8.1.2.3), can be synthesized by the reduction of ( )-ephedrine by hydrogen using a palladium on carbon catalyst [8]. 

The second method consists of the fermentation of glucose by yeast carboligase in the presence of benzaldehyde, which during the process turns into ( )-l-phenyl-2-keto-propanol (11.3.5). This is reduced by hydrogen in the presence of methylamine, to give the desired ephedrine (11.3.4) [54,55]. 

Nitroalkanols are intermediate compounds that are used extensively in many important syntheses 142). They can be converted by hydrogenation into / -aminoalcohols, which are intermediates for pharmacologically important chemicals such as chloroamphenicol and ephedrine. They are obtained by Henry s reaction by the condensation of nitroalkanes with aldehydes. The classical method for this transformation involves the use of bases such as alkali metal hydroxides, alkoxides, Ba(OH)2, amines, etc. 142-144). However, these catalysts give predominantly dehydrated products—nitroalkenes— which are susceptible to polymerization (Scheme 16). The reaction proceeds by the nucleophilic addition of the carbanion formed by the abstraction of a proton from the nitro compound to the carbon atom of the carbonyl group, finally forming the nitroaldol by abstraction of a proton from the catalyst. 

Certain erythro-2-wamo alcohols such as ( )-ephedrine 150, ( )-A -methyl-ephedrine 151 and ( )-conhydrine 153 are synthesized with complete stereochemical control by the catalytic hydrogenation of the corresponding 4,5-disubstituted 2(3/i)-oxazolone derivatives 22 and 27, followed by ring opening (Fig. 5.37). ... 

Enantioselective reduction of acetophenone was achieved in a ruthenium-catalysed hydrogen transfer reaction using isopropanol as the hydrogen source in the presence of mono-tosylated (R, R)-diphenylethylenediamine, ephedrine or norephedrine as chiral auxiliary ligands. Under optimised conditions, ( R)-l-phenylethanol was obtained in 90% yield and 82% enantiomeric excess (ee) within 9 min. f-Butylphenylketone was reduced under similar conditions in almost quantitative yield but in moderate ee... 

Figure 12. Difference of chemical conformations of ephedrine (5) and pseudoephedrine ( ) and distance between hydrogen and nitrogen measured by molecular modeling (Sybyl 6.5, Tripos).

Pyruvate decarboxylase (PDC, E.C. 4.1.1.1) accepts other substrates besides pyruvate, its natural reactant As early as 1921, Neubergand Hirsch described the reaction of yeast with benzaldehyde and pyruvate to phenylacetylcarbinol (2-keto-3-hydroxy-propylbenzene) (Neuberg, 1921) in a carboligase side reaction which yields ephedrine after reaction with methylamine and catalytic hydrogenation (Figure 7.37). 

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