Asymmetric catalysis (Knowles, Noyori, Sharpless)
Catálisis asimétrica (hidrogenación y epoxidación enantioselectivas)
- Date
- 1968-1980 · confidence high
- Place
- Monsanto, St. Louis (Knowles); Nagoya (Noyori); MIT, Cambridge, MA (Sharpless)
- Credited to
- William Knowles (1968), Ryoji Noyori (BINAP, 1980), K. Barry Sharpless (epoxidation, 1980)
- People
- 👤 Karl Barry Sharpless1941–👤 Ryōji Noyori1938–
- Field
- Matter & energy
What was discovered
Chiral rhodium and ruthenium catalysts (Knowles, Noyori) and titanium-tartrate catalysts (Sharpless) produce a single enantiomer with high selectivity. They make it possible to manufacture enantiopure drugs at scale (L-DOPA was the first).
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001.
What it led to
- Industrial chiral drugs
- Asymmetric organocatalysis (List and MacMillan, 2000)
- Regulation of enantiopure drugs
Built on
- Molecular chirality (Pasteur's tartrate resolution)1848
- Wilkinson's homogeneous catalysis (1965)
- Pasteur's chirality
Made possible
- Asymmetric organocatalysis2000
- industrial synthesis of L-DOPA
- menthol (Takasago)