Light Irradiation-Induced Catalytic Deracemization Reactions

Abstract

Deracemization reactions are a simple and attractive strategy to obtain a single enantiomer from a racemic mixture without structural change. However, two challenges to the reactions exist. One is the thermodynamically disfavored process due to the negative entropy change. The other is the racemization pathway based on the principle of microscopic reversibility. This review focuses on the recent catalytic deracemization reactions under photochemical conditions, which have allowed the accumulation of a single enantiomer.