Commercialization of the hydrolytic kinetic resolution of racemic epoxides: toward the economical large-scale production of enantiopure epichlorohydrin

The hydrolytic kinetic resolution of racemic terminal epoxides utilizing chiral (salen)Co(III) catalysts provides practical access to enantiopure epoxides and diols. However, general issues surrounding catalyst activation combined with the specific problem of racemization of epichlorohydrin served to make the large-scale production of (R)- or (S)-epichlorohydrin difficult and uneconomical. A process for the large-scale production and isolation of active (salen)Co(III)OAc catalyst and a method of catalyst reduction after reaction using ascorbic acid have been developed to overcome these issues.