NAMS 2002 Workshop - ICOM 2008

Polymeric Membranes II – 1 – Keynote
Wednesday July 16, 9:30 AM-10:15 AM, Moloka’i
Optical Resolution with Chiral Polymaide Membranes
M. Nakagawa, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto, Japan
Y. Ikeuchi, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto, Japan
M. Yoshikawa (Speaker), Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto, Japan - masahiro@kit.ac.jp
Chirality plays an important role in biological processes. Production of
enantiomerically pure compounds has attracted much attention in pharmaceutical
industry, agrochemical applications, perfume production, food preparation, and
so forth. There are a couple of ways to obtain optically pure enantiomers; one is
asymmetric synthesis, the other resolution of racemates. In spite of the advances
in asymmetric synthesis of pure enantiomers, the resolution of racemates is still
the main method for the production of pure enantiomers in industry. Among chiral
separation technologies, membrane processes are regarded as economically
and ecologically competitive to other conventional chiral separation technologies.
With the exception of optical activity, enantiomers show identical
physicochemical properties. From this, physical stereoselectivity is an important
factor for chiral recognition and chiral separation. To this end, novel polyamides
with chiral environment were synthesized from aromatic diamines and the
derivative of glutamic acids. Membranes with chiral environment were prepared
from the present chiral polyamides. They showed chiral separation ability. Those
abilities were dependent on the absolute configuration of constitutional repeating
unit of chiral polyamides. The present results suggest that chiral polyamide
membranes have potential to separate racemic enantiomers. The present results
indicate the great possibility for practical applications.