A high-performance, tailor-made resolving agent: remarkable enhancement of resolution ability by introducing a naphthyl group into the fundamental skeleton

A novel resolving agent, 2-naphthylglycolic acid (2-NGA), was designed for p-substituted 1-arylethylamines on the basis of the consideration that a rigid and large naphthyl group would be favorable for the close packing of supramolecular hydrogen-bond sheets formed between the carboxy groups of 2-NGA and the amino groups of p-substituted 1-arylethylamines. Racemic 2-NGA was readily available from commercially available raw materials, and both enantiopure forms could be obtained by simple diastereomeric resolution with enantiopure 1-phenylethylamine. Thus-prepared enantiopure 2-NGA was found to have an excellent resolution ability not only for p-substituted 1-arylethylamines, but also for a wide variety of chiral primary amines. X-Ray crystallographic analyses of the less- and more-soluble diastereomeric salts revealed that this excellent resolution ability of 2-NGA arose from the formation of a supramolecular hydrogen-bond sheet with the primary amine, as we had expected, and also from the possible achievement of an infinite chain of CH⋯π interaction between its naphthyl group and the aromatic group of the amine, which was formed in the hydrophobic region of the supramolecular hydrogen-bond sheet.