-
Development
of new asymmetric catalysts for
chemical manufacturing
Handy chemicals?
Strangely enough,
many chemicals can be considered as
having 'hands'. Some molecules of
a chemical may have a left hand and
others the right. What's more, just
as human hands have different properties
- try putting your right hand into
a left glove - the two hands of a
chemical also have different properties
with different biological effects.
For example, one hand of a pharmaceutical
may have a beneficial effect, but
the other no effect at all, or worse
still it could have a harmful effect.
Despite having different
biological properties, the two hands
of a chemical - like our own hands
- share much in common. Press your
hands together in prayer position
and this similarity becomes clear…
they are mirror images of each other.
This similarity makes it very difficult
for chemists to prepare just one hand
of a chemical, but - again in view
of the different biological properties
of the two 'hands' - it is essential
to do so. Traditionally, chemists
have tackled this problem by preparing
a 1:1 mixture of the two hands and
then physically separated them. This
is a tedious process and 50% of the
chemical (the 'wrong hand') is discarded
as waste.
Industrial-strength
catalysts
Could a machine be
designed to replace this labour-intensive,
wasteful approach? Dr North and his
team thought so. Their goal: to build
a catalyst capable of taking simple
chemicals and converting them into
just one 'hand' of the desired product.
But this was not as easy as it might
sound. Previous attempts at building
such a machine failed the rigorous
industrial specifications requiring
that the catalyst be reliable, easy
to use, fast, highly selective and
able to function at room temperature.
With EU funding, the
project assembled a network of chemists
across Europe - in London, Oxford,
Paris, Rostock, Moscow and Armenia
- to develop industrial-strength catalysts.
The success of the project is measured
in the 50 new catalyst1 designs and
40 publications coming out of the
consortium. The most successful design
has been patented and is being licensed
to Avecia, a major fine-chemicals
manufacturer, which will market the
'single handed' chemicals prepared
with this catalyst. These chemicals
will be the starting materials for
the synthesis of a wide range of pharmaceutical
products that will contribute to keeping
Europeans healthy in the 21st century.
And the team creating such a fine
legacy will be remembered at the very
least as finalists in the Descartes
Prize 2001.
Contact:
Dr Michael
North (King's College London,
UK)
E-mail: michael.north@kcl.ac.ul
Development of new
asymmetric catalysts for chemical
manufacturing:
Movie (ZIP/MPEG, 1.5Mb)
