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A supported organaocatalyst has been developed for direct asymmetric Aldol reaction in water with higher enantioselectivity than the original homogeneous catalyst.

Asymmetric organocatalyst is considered to be a very powerful tool for stereoselective synthesis on enantiomerically enriched compounds.  However, organocatalytic reactions, whilst avoiding many of the problems associated with metal catalysts, often require high catalyst loadings and tedious purification of the products. 

In this work, Roser Pleixats and colleagues from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the University of Alicante (Spain) and the Institute Charles Gerhardt Montpellier (France), have developed a recyclable silica-supported prolinamide organocatalyst.  The catalyst was applied to the direct asymmetric Aldol reaction, and allowed reactions to be conducted exclusively in water without the need of a co-catalyst.  This also resulted in easier isolation of the product and good recycling (at least three times) of the catalyst without the need for regeneration. 

This article is free to access until the 24th May 2012!  Click on the link below to find out more…

Recyclable silica-supported prolinamide organocatalysts for direct asymmetric Aldol reaction in water, Amàlia Monge-Marcet, Xavier Cattoën, Diego A. Alonso, Carmen Nájera, Michel Wong Chi Man and Roser Pleixats, Green Chem., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2GC35227C

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Advances in catalytic metal-free reductions: from bio-inspired concepts to applications in the organocatalytic synthesis of pharmaceuticals and natural products, Magnus Rueping, Jeremy Dufour and Fenja R. Schoepke, Green Chem., 2011, 13, 1084-1105

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