Highly Efficient and Robust Enantioselective Liquid-Liquid Extraction of 1,2-Amino Alcohols utilizing VAPOL- and VANOL-based Phosphoric Acid Hosts

The large-scale production of enantiopure compounds in a cost-effective and environmentally friendly manner remains one of the major challenges of modern-day chemistry. The resolution of racemates through enantioselective liquid-liquid extraction was developed as a suitable solution but has remained largely underused, owing to a lack of highly efficient and robust chiral hosts to mediate the process. This paucity of hosts can in part be attributed to a poor understanding of the underlying principles behind these processes hindering the design of more efficient selectors. A previously untested class of hosts, VAPOL and VANOL derived phosphoric acids, has been studied in depth for the efficient enantioselective liquid-liquid extraction of 1,2-amino alcohols. A systematic investigation of extraction parameters was conducted, revealing many key interactions and DFT calculations illustrate the binding modes for the 1:1 complexes that are involved in chiral recognition. The resulting, now-optimized, procedures are highly robust and easy to implement. They are also easily scalable, as demonstrated by U-tube experiments.