Enzymes
Glycolysis
This is an example of a reaction involving thionyl chloride. The alcohol is halogenated with excess thionyl chloride to yield chloro lactone. The paper is a study on the biomimetic (mimicking a biological process) synthesis of bisesquiterpene lactones, specifically biatractylolide and biepiasterolide which have been extracted from Atractylodes macrocephala (Chinese medicinal plant).
This reaction is a summary of an ecologically friendly process for halogenating alkynes. The reaction works with both hydrobromic and hydrochloric acid, and produces water as its only waste product. It also gives a good yield of the halogenated product.
Instead of undergoing anti-Markovnakov addition of HBr, the alkynes are halogenated. This is due to the way the reactants are mixed. Mixing a hydrohalogenic acid with a solution of t-butylhydroperoxide (TBHP) and hydrogen peroxide will oxidize the halogens, causing them to become positively charged. The charged halogens will then attack the alkynes, and a halogenation reaction will occur.
Glycolysis
This is one of the synthesis steps to produce tolterodine tartrate. The focus of the study was to find a cost-effective and impurity-free process to produce tolterodine tartrate. This compound is a muscle relaxant used to treat bladder disorders. Although ethers are inert to most reagents, a benzyl ether, like the one above, can be hydrogenated under mild conditions (H2/Raney/Ni/MeOH/25-30 C) to an alcohol. The phenyl group stays and the methylbenzene group leaves.
