Self-disproportionation of enantiomers of heterocyclic compounds having a tertiary trifluoromethyl alcohol center on chromatography with a non-chiral system

Self-disproportionation of enantiomers of heterocycles having a tertiary trifluoromethyl alcohol center on an achiral silica-gel stationary phase is discussed. During the chromatographic separation of an enantiomerically enriched mixture of 1-(3,4-dimethoxyphenethyl)-3-hydroxy-3-(trifluoromethyl)-6,7-dihydro-1H-indole-2,4(3H,5H)-dione (1) by eluting with ether on a non-chiral regular silica-gel significant enantiomeric enrichment was observed. Separation of non-racemic samples of 1 with enantiomeric excess values of 10–54% was carefully investigated: enantiomerically pure 1 with 99.9% ee was obtained by the use of 1 with at least 40% ee. A remarkable enantiomeric enrichment in the faster eluting fractions was also observed for compound 1 with only 30% ee to transform into 80% ee. Other enantiomeric mixtures of heterocyclic molecules containing a trifluoromethyl alcohol moiety at their quaternary carbon center were also examined from an SDE view point.