Racemic mixtures enantiomeric excess

Enantiomeric excess (Section 5.12D) A measurement of how much one enantiomer is present in excess of the racemic mixture. Enantiomeric excess (ee) is also called optical purity ee = % of one enantiomer — % of the other enantiomer. 

The reaction time t was classically used as the parameter to discuss the course of a KR [6-8, 19]. Conversion extent C gives equations that are easier to handle, especially if taken with values lying between 0 (initial state) and 1 (full transformation) [20, 21]. Conversion C is denoted by C= 1-([R]- -[S])/Xq, where Xq is the initial concentration of the racemic mixture. Enantiomeric excess of the remaining starting material (ee jj ) is defined as follows. 

Mixtures containing equal quantities of enantiomers are called racemic mixtures Racemic mixtures are optically inactive Conversely when one enantiomer is present m excess a net rotation of the plane of polarization is observed At the limit where all the molecules are of the same handedness we say the substance is optically pure Optical purity or percent enantiomeric excess is defined as... 

Enantiomeric excess (Section 7 4) Difference between the per centage of the major enantiomer present in a mixture and the percentage of its mirror image An optically pure material has an enantiomenc excess of 100% A racemic mixture has an enantiomeric excess of zero... 

Lactic acid is also the simplest hydroxy acid that is optically active. L (+)-Lactic acid [79-33-4] (1) occurs naturally ia blood and ia many fermentation products (7). The chemically produced lactic acid is a racemic mixture and some fermentations also produce the racemic mixture or an enantiomeric excess of D (—)-lactic acid [10326-41-7] (2) (8). 

The primary disadvantage of the conjugate addition approach is the necessity of performing two chiral operations (resolution or asymmetric synthesis) ia order to obtain exclusively the stereochemicaHy desired end product. However, the advent of enzymatic resolutions and stereoselective reduciag agents has resulted ia new methods to efficiently produce chiral enones and CO-chain synthons, respectively (see Enzymes, industrial Enzymes in ORGANIC synthesis). Eor example, treatment of the racemic hydroxy enone (70) with commercially available porciae pancreatic Hpase (PPL) ia vinyl acetate gave a separable mixture of (5)-hydroxyenone (71) and (R)-acetate (72) with enantiomeric excess (ee) of 90% or better (204). 

Optically active thiiranes have been obtained by resolution of racemic mixtures by chiral tri-o-thymotide. The dextrorotatory thymotide prefers the (5,5)-enantiomer of 2,3-dimethylthiirane which forms a 2 1 host guest complex. A 30% enantiomeric excess of (5,5)-(—)-2,3-dimethylthiirane is obtained (80JA1157). 

For successful DKR two reactions an in situ racemization (krac) and kinetic resolution [k(R) k(S)] must be carefully chosen. The detailed description of all parameters can be found in the literature [26], but in all cases, the racemization reaction must be much faster than the kinetic resolution. It is also important to note that both reactions must proceed under identical conditions. This methodology is highly attractive because the enantiomeric excess of the product is often higher than in the original kinetic resolution. Moreover, the work-up of the reaction is simpler since in an ideal case only the desired enantiomeric product is present in the reaction mixture. This concept is used for preparation of many important classes of organic compounds like natural and nonnatural a-amino acids, a-substituted nitriles and esters, cyanohydrins, 5-alkyl hydantoins, and thiazoUn-5-ones. 

We monitored the percent conversion of epichlorohydrin and enantiomeric excess of the recovered S-epichlorohydrin with time by using GC-FID. Approximately 54% conversion and >99% ee were obtained in about 4 h reaction time. After 4 h, the epichlorohydrin was removed under vacuum at room temperature and diol was removed at a temperature of 329 K. The recovered catalyst was further treated in the HKR of racemic mixture of fresh epichlorohydrin. In the second run, we observed a decrease in the conversion and ee compared to the fresh catalyst. The Co-salen was again recovered after the second run by removing all the products under vacuum and recycled two more times. With each subsequent HKR reaction, the conversion and ee were found to decrease with time (22). Table 43.1 summarizes the initial rates and ee s determined from the four runs without intermediate catalyst regeneration. Interestingly, the initial catalyst activity was resumed when the catalyst was regenerated with acetic acid prior to recycle. 

An alternative to extraction crystallization is used to obtain a desired enantiomer after asymmetric hydrolysis by Evonik Industries. In such a way, L-amino acids for infusion solutions or as intermediates for pharmaceuticals are prepared [35,36]. For example, non-proteinogenic amino acids like L-norvaline or L-norleucine are possible products. The racemic A-acteyl-amino acid is converted by acylase 1 from Aspergillus oryzae to yield the enantiopure L-amino acid, acetic acid and the unconverted substrate (Figure 4.7). The product recovery is achieved by crystallization, benefiting from the low solubility of the product. The product mixture is filtrated by an ultrafiltration membrane and the unconverted acetyl-amino acid is reracemized in a subsequent step. The product yield is 80% and the enantiomeric excess 99.5%. 

Such enantiomeric excesses have not been observed in analyses of the corresponding a-H-a-aminoalkanoic acids. According to the authors, the excess of the L-forms could be due to a partial photocleavage of the racemic amino acid mixture as a result of the influence of circularly polarized UV light in a presolar cloud (Cronin and Pizzarello, 2000). 

The application of a chiral auxiliary or catalyst, in either stoichiometric or catalytic fashion, has been a common practice in asymmetric synthesis, and most of such auxiliaries are available in homochiral form. Some processes of enantiodifferentiation arise from diastereomeric interactions in racemic mixtures and thus cause enhanced enantioselectivity in the reaction. In other words, there can be a nonlinear relationship between the optical purity of the chiral auxiliary and the enantiomeric excess of the product. One may expect that a chiral ligand, not necessarily in enantiomerically pure form, can lead to high levels of asymmetric induction via enantiodiscrimination. In such cases, a nonlinear relationship (NLE) between the ee of the product and the ee of the chiral ligand may be observed. 

Tius and co-workers elegantly applied a variant of the Nazarov reaction to the preparation of cyclopentenone prostaglandins (Scheme 19.39) [46]. Moreover, it was demonstrated that the chirality of non-racemic allenes is transferred to an sp3-hybridized carbon atom. Preparation of allenic morpholinoamide 214 and resolution of the enantiomers by chiral HPLC provided (-)- and (+)-214. Compound (-)-214 was exposed to the vinyllithium species 215 to afford a presumed intermediate which was not observed but spontaneously cyclized to give (+)- and (—)-216 as a 5 1 mixture. Compound (+)-216 was obtained with an 84% transfer of chiral information and (-)-216 was obtained in 64% ee. The lower enantiomeric excess of (—)-216 indicates that some Z to E isomerization took place. This was validated by the conversion of 216 to 217, where the absolute configuration was established. The stereochemical outcome of this reaction has been explained by conrotatory cyclization of 218 in which the distal group on the allene rotates away from the alkene to give 216. 

Carbonylative kinetic resolution of a racemic mixture of trans-2,3-epoxybutane was also investigated by using the enantiomerically pure cobalt complex [(J ,J )-salcy]Al(thf)2 [Co(CO)4] (4) [28]. The carbonylation of the substrate at 30 °C for 4h (49% conversion) gave the corresponding cis-/3-lactone in 44% enantiomeric excess, and the relative ratio (kre ) of the rate constants for the consumption of the two enantiomers was estimated to be 3.8, whereas at 0 °C, kte = 4.1 (Scheme 6). This successful kinetic resolution reaction supports the proposed mechanism where cationic chiral Lewis acid coordinates and activates an epoxide. 

Almost 140 years ago Pasteur showed how a racemic mixture could be separated into its chiral constituents. Ever since, theories such as the three possibilities above have been proposed to explain an abiotic origin for molecular chirality in living systems. At the present time, however, no agreement exists about which explanation is best. In each ofthese scenarios, we can imagine production of some initial enantiomeric excess (e.e.). 

The metal-catalyzed amplification of e.e. in small molecules, demonstrated by Soai and coworkers, along with the chiral enrichment of amino arid polymers by sequential polymerization/depolymerization steps, have shown that small enantiomeric excesses in nearly racemic mixtures can be reactively amplified to produce chiral dominance. These real chemical systems, which include plausible prebiotic reactions, experimentally demonstrate the principle of the chiral amplification of a spontaneously broken chiral symmetry in a dynamic and authentic chemical milieu. Therefore amplification to dominance of a small chiral excess of both small and polymeric molecules can be credibly incorporated into an origin-of-life model. 

One of the earliest examples in this field [94] was reported by Mao and Anderson who showed that the SbHnl was specific for the dehydrocyanation of p-hydroxybenzaldehyde cyanohydrin. In a recent patent [95] the process of dehydrocyanation was successfully demonstrated using the PaHnl as the catalyst and a gas-membrane extraction method to remove the undesired aldehydes and HCN, which yielded a wide range of (S)-cyanohydrins, often with excellent enantiomeric excess. In further patent literature, Niedermeyer [96] also generated (S)-cyanohydrins via decomposition of a racemic mixture, but the problems of workup resulted in decreased yields. 

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