Success Rate in a Chiral Separation: Towards a Better Separation Machinery

Abstract

Optical resolution is a very fundamental object in chemistry. Although there are different techniques for the enantiomer separation of acids and bases the methods for optical resolution of non-acidic and non-basic compounds in a preparative scale are only rare. Making use of the crystalline inclusion phenomena is a promising new approach to fill this gap[l]. Host compounds having this particular feature of crystalline inclusion formation may be designed according to some basic principles such a rigid framework, attached functional groups and bulky substituents that make a host compund hard to crystallize without a proper spatial/functional complement thus forming a clathrate (Fig. 1) [2]. The clever installment of chirality gives rise to high enantioselectivity at clathrate formation. Ready availability of these blocks in optically resolved form arising from a natural chiral source makes them attractive [3].