MaxPHOS

Enantioselective catalysis has generated tremendous interest both in academia and in industry. Although a very appealing approach when compared to other possible chemical approaches, enantioselective catalysis has to face some critical considerations when applied at industrial scale: catalyst availability, ease of implementation, access to technology and, very important, cost. Asymmetric catalysis must be competitive against other methods to produce a chiral molecule.

Although a panoply of chiral ligands have emerged to tackle specific chiral transformations only a few have found significant applications in industry for the mentioned reasons.

In this regard and with the aim to develop effective and industrially sound enantioselective catalysts, Enantia, with the collaboration of an academic group, has developed a new family of chiral ligands that overcome the limitations of many of its category.

A representative member of this family is the diphosphinamine known as MaxPHOS, isolated as its tetrafluoroborate salt.

The complexation of MaxPHOS with Rh furnishes a catalyst which has found very interesting applications in enantioselective hydrogenation reactions, particularly for the synthesis of α and β amino acids.

The most important features of this catalyst are:

• High chemical yield and % ee (enantiomeric excess)
• Low catalyst load
• Remarkable air stability
• Affordable cost
• Availability of both enantiomers

Enantia is currently further exploring Rh-MaxPHOS performance on a diverse range of substrates and its applications to the synthesis of APIs and high value intermediates.

Samples of either enantiomer of MaxPHOS ligand and their corresponding metal complexes (catalysts) are available to those interested in testing them on their processes. These ligands, catalysts and related compounds are patent protected by Enantia.