Chiral amplification is extensively studied due to the importance of chiral purity in various industries such as the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries. Over the past ten years, Viedma ripening has been established as a reliable solid-state method for the deracemization of racemic mixtures of crystalline compounds into single enantiomers, simply by continuously grinding a suspension or temperature cycling. In this research, a process principle is established on the separation of enantiomers extracted from Traditional Chinese Medicine to extend the applications of Viedma ripening to natural extracted compounds. Synephrine is chosen as the model compound for this research as synephrine is extracted from Citrus aurantium, also known as Zhi Shi in Traditional Chinese Medicine, but i...[ Read more ]

Chiral amplification is extensively studied due to the importance of chiral purity in various industries such as the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries. Over the past ten years, Viedma ripening has been established as a reliable solid-state method for the deracemization of racemic mixtures of crystalline compounds into single enantiomers, simply by continuously grinding a suspension or temperature cycling. In this research, a process principle is established on the separation of enantiomers extracted from Traditional Chinese Medicine to extend the applications of Viedma ripening to natural extracted compounds. Synephrine is chosen as the model compound for this research as synephrine is extracted from Citrus aurantium, also known as Zhi Shi in Traditional Chinese Medicine, but its solubility and solid state properties have received less attention in the literature. In this study, the feasibility of separating an enantiopure synephrine from its racemic mixture via temperature cycling during Viedma Ripening is investigated.