Pasteur resolution

Comparison of the Solid-State Ionic Chiral Auxiliary Method of Asymmetric Synthesis with the Pasteur Resolution Procedure... 

Fig. 4 Comparison of the solid-state ionic chiral auxiliary method of asymmetric synthesis with the Pasteur resolution procedure...

Like other methods of asymmetric synthesis, the solid-state ionic chiral auxiliary procedure has an advantage over Pasteur resolution in terms of chemical yield. The maximum amount of either enantiomer that can be obtained by resolution of a racemic mixture is 50%, and in practice the yield is often considerably less [47]. In contrast, the ionic chiral auxiliary approach affords a single enantiomer of the product, often in chemical and optical yields of well over 90%. Furthermore, either enantiomer can be obtained as desired by simply using one optical antipode or the other of the ionic chiral auxiliary. 

In principle, any of the photoproducts shown in Table 4 could have been prepared in enantiomerically pure form by irradiating their achiral precursors in solution to form a racemate and then separating the enantiomers by means of the classical Pasteur resolution procedure [36]. This sequence is shown in the lower half of Fig. 3. The top half of Fig. 3 depicts the steps involved in the solid-state ionic chiral auxiliary method of asymmetric synthesis. The difference between this approach and the Pasteur method is one of timing. In the ionic chiral auxiliary method, salt formation between the achiral reactant and an optically pure amine precedes the photochemical step, whereas in the Pasteur procedure, the photochemical step comes first and is followed by treatment of the racemate with an optically pure amine to form a pair of diastereomeric salts. The two methods are similar in that the crystalline state is crucial to their success. The Pasteur resolution procedure relies on fractional crystallization for the separation of the diastereomeric salts, and the ionic chiral auxiliary approach only gives good ees when the photochemistry is carried out in the crystalline state. 

Figure 13.1 Pasteur resolution of tartaric acid by quinicine (1).

The equilibria involved in formation and separation of diastereomeric salts and the equations governing those equilibria determine what parameters and how each parameter plays a role in the process. However, it is not straightforward to design a separation process quantitatively based on these equations. The ternary phase diagrams were introduced several decades ago to the classic resolution method through diastereomeric salt formation (Pasteur resolution) and have proven to be very powerful tools for this... 

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