ENANTIOSPECIFIC MEMBRANE PROCESSES

Membrane technology can be applied in two ways to produce pure enantiomers. In one case, a membrane separation process can be combined with an enantiospecific reaction to obtain so-called 'enantiospecific membrane reactor'. These systems are useful to carry out asymmetric synthesis or kinetic resolution and simultaneously separate the produced enantiomer. As for general membrane reactors, the result is a were compact system with a higher conversion; in fact, removal of a product drives equilibrium-limited reactions towards completion. The other way to apply membrane technology to chiral production is the use of intrinsically enantioselective membranes that are able to distinguish between two isomers favouring preperential transport of only one isomer in absence of reaction. In This paper, the current development of chiral membrane processes will be discussed.