CAL-B-Catalyzed deacylation of benzylic acetates: Effect of amines addition. Comparison of several approaches.

Herein, we report an efficient enantioselective cleavage of the acyl-moity of some secondary benzylic acetate derivatives catalyzed by lipase B from Candida antarctica (CAL-B) in the presence of triethylamine, as additive, in non aqueous media. The influence of the hydrophobicity of two solvent, the basicity of three amines and the amount of CAL-B were studied in the presence/absence of molecular sieves 4Å. The best results in term of selectivity are achieved using the triethylamine as basic additive and in that case, the reactivity is only best at low conversion.