Highly Stereoselective Recognition and Deracemization of Amino Acids by Supramolecular Self‐Assembly

The highly stereoselective supramolecular self‐assembly of α‐amino acids with a chiral aldehyde derived from binol and a chiral guanidine derived from diphenylethylenediamine (dpen) to form the imino acid salt is reported. This system can be used to cleanly convert D ‐amino acids into L ‐amino acids or vice versa at ambient temperature. It can also be used to synthesize α‐deuterated D ‐ or L ‐amino acids. A crystal structure of the ternary complex together with DFT computation provided detailed insight into the origin of the stereoselective recognition of amino acids.