Deracemization of Benzoin and its Derivatives via Kinetic, Dynamic Kinetic, Aerobic Oxidative Kinetic, and Reagent-mediated resolution.

The production of enantiomerically pure compounds remains a vital and valuable objective in modern organic chemistry due to their broad applications in fields such as biosensing, optics, electronics, photonics, catalysis, nanotechnology, and drug or DNA delivery. Optically pure α-hydroxy ketones, in particular, are key structural components in many drugs and natural products with significant biological activity. Among these, benzoin type α-hydroxy ketones, which possess two adjacent functional groups, a carbonyl and a hydroxy group, are especially important.

Diastereoselective synthesis of (+)-pseudohygroline via proline-catalyzed alpha-hydroxylation.

A highly diastereoselective total synthesis of (+)-pseudohygroline (1) starting from D-proline is described using Wittig olefination and MacMillan-alpha-hydroxylation as key reactions. (+)-Pseudohygroline is an important molecule in alkaloid chemistry as it was prepared as part of the first chemical proof of the absolute stereochemistry of biosynthetically important (+)-hygroline (2) and (+)-hygrine (3).