Phase Diagrams to Evaluate the Opportunity for Enantiomeric Enrichment of Some Nonracemic Mixtures of Amino Acid Benzyl Esters by Crystallization as p-Toluenesulfonate Salts

A number of amino acids undergo moderate-to-high racemization when converted to benzyl ester under inadequate conditions. As they are usually recovered and purified at the end of the esterification by precipitating/crystallizing the p-toluenesulfonate salt, it is of most importance to be aware that such isolation procedures can improve but also lessen the enatiomeric excess of the product. To predict the chance of enantioenrichment by crystallization, it is necessary to define whether the enantiomers of these ester salts form conglomerates or racemic compounds in the solid state and, in case of racemic compounds, to know the enantiomeric composition of the eutectics and to verify that it is similar to the eutectic composition obtained from ternary solubility curves. We constructed the binary melting point phase diagrams of a number of amino acid benzyl ester p-toluenesulfonates showing that most of them form racemic compounds. Of these, we studied those of Ala, Phe, Leu, and Glu, in particular, demonstrating that when prepared in l form with moderate racemization the first three cannot be enantioenriched by crystallization because their l fraction is much higher at the ternary solubility eutectic than at the binary eutectic, whereas the last one can be isolated enantiopure by crystallization because its l fractions at both the ternary solubility and binary eutectics are accordingly low.