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Updated: Jan 3, 2026

Heterogeneous Removal of Water-Soluble Ruthenium Olefin Metathesis Catalyst from Aqueous Media Via Host-Guest Interaction
Published on: August 23, 2018
Room-Temperature Asymmetric Transfer Hydrogenation of Biomass-Derived Levulinic Acid to Optically Pure
Vaishali S Shende1, Amol B Raut1, Prathamesh Raghav1
1Department of Chemistry, Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai 400019, India.
Abstract:
This study presents a first report on ruthenium-catalyzed asymmetric transfer hydrogenation (ATH) of levulinic acid (LA) to chiral γ-valerolactone (GVL). ATH of LA has been explored with Noyori's chiral catalyst (Ru-TsDPEN) in methanol solvent. Efficacy of ATH reaction of LA was investigated under different reactions conditions such as temperature, catalyst, and hydrogen donor concentration. The effect of various organic tertiary bases along with formic acid (FA) as a hydrogen donor was studied, and N-methylpiperidine with FA (1:1 molar ratio) was revealed as an efficient hydrogen donor for ATH of LA to GVL furnishing chiral GVL with complete conversion and 93% enantiomeric excess (ee). This operationally simple and mild ATH protocol was tested for practical applicability of ATH of LA obtained from biomass waste (rice husk and wheat straw) and furnished chiral GVL with 82% ee.
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