Physical Separation of Enantiomeric Products by Compartmentalized Parallel Kinetic Resolution

Accessing each enantiomers of a chiral molecule starting from a racemic mixture remains a daunting challenge in chemistry. Indeed, until now only few solutions exist to separate enantiomers of an equimolar mixture of a chiral precursor. In this study, we establish a new strategy to prepare simultaneously and physically separate both enantioenriched enantiomers of a molecule starting from a racemic substrate. This process combines two enantiomeric catalytic systems, working in parallel and a separation by an achiral membrane with selective permeability. This unprecedented system was successfully applied to the simultaneous preparation of both enantiomers of chiral 1,2-diols starting from racemic epoxides using Jacobsen’s hydrolytic kinetic resolution (HKR) in parallel.