Obtaining pure enantiomers and co-crystals using continuous preferential crystallization: A process development investigation using population balance models

摘要

Designing processes that yield enantiomerically pure products is of key importance in the pharmaceutical industry where typically only one of the enantiomers shows the desired effect on a patient, while the other enantiomer is either not effective as a drug or even toxic. Since asymmetric synthesis may not yield high enough enantiomeric purity, one has to resort to separation processes that separate enantiomers. For large biomolecules that are administered in liquid form chiral chromatography is the method of choice. However, small molecular drugs are sold as solids that typically originate from a crystallization process. For these products it is therefore interesting to investigate crystallization processes that can separate enantiomers and deliver a solid product in a single process step [1,2].