Fast further purification of diastereomeric salts of a nonracemic acid by gas antisolvent fractionation.

Abstract

A novel, green possibility of the further purification of the diastereomeric salt of 4-chloromandelic acid and 1-phenylethane-1-amine was developed. Gas antisolvent method using supercritical carbon dioxide was applied for the first time to precipitate the diastereomeric salts with increased purity followed by the supercritical fluid extraction of the dissolved diastereomers. The RR-salt can be purified to >99%, while fractionation-based purification of the SR-salt is limited to ~80%. The limiting initial diastereomeric excess correlates strongly with the atmospheric melting eutectic composition of the same salts, which suggests that despite the fast precipitation, the diastereomeric excess of the solid product is not kinetically determined. The efficiency of the diastereomeric enrichment is in the same range as that of the atmospheric reference experiments; however, technological advantages provided by the antisolvent precipitation method such as fast processing and dry product obtained suggest that this novel procedure is a promising alternative to the atmospheric methods.