Dr. Philippe Dupau

Dr. Philippe Dupau
Firmenich SA, Geneva, Swizerland
Thursday, May 1oth , 2012
Time: 14:30
Room: 5118.-156
Contact: Prof A. Minnaard ([email protected])
Organometallics and catalysis : Ruthenium-catalyzed selective hydrogenation for flavor and fragrance applications
Firmenich SA has been involved in developing catalysts towards organic synthesis of ingredients with ever-growing
chemical structure complexity. The catalysis has to be highly efficient in order to enable scale-up to several-tons in
production while fulfilling all flavor and fragrance industry requirements. As a matter of fact, being closer to petrochemical industry concerning volumes produced, products costs and margins achieved, the flavor and fragrance industry
has to face more important growing technical, safety, environmental and economical constraints compared to pharmaceutical industry.
Enantioselectivity has drawn particular attention in academic synthetic research and is also a criterion of high importance in pharmaceutical industry. Chemical processes for flavor and/or fragrance applications generally display much
higher requirements concerning chemo-, regio- and stereoselectivities. Also, Firmenich SA has been devoted a lot of
effort in order to develop in particular selective hydrogenation processes in order to achieve successful replacement of
the costly but also hazardous and waste generating use of metal hydrides, such a catalytic transformation being one of
the most often used in industry in general.
We will be presenting various homogeneous ruthenium-catalyzed selective hydrogenation reactions (C=O and C=C
bonds) that were developed for potential or on-going transformations for flavor and/or fragrance applications. In addition, some work done towards industrial synthesis of ruthenium complexes used as catalysts, commercial availability
of such compounds for large scale applications shall be discussed
References :
1) (a) Rautenstrauch V., Challand R., Churlaud R., Morris R. H., Abdur-Rashid K., Brazi E., Mimoun H., PCT Int. Appl.
WO 2002/022526 (Firmenich SA), 2002, (priority 13.09.2000); (b) Rautenstrauch V., Churlaud R., Morris R. H., Abdur-Rashid K. (2002) PCT Int. Appl. WO 2002/040155, 2002, (priority 17.11.2000).
2) (a) Saudan L., Dupau P., Riedhauser J-J., Wyss P., PCT Int. Appl. WO 2006/106483 (Firmenich SA), 2006,
(priority 05.04.2005); (b) Saudan L., Dupau P., Riedhauser J.-J., Wyss P., PCT Int. Appl. WO 2006/106484
(Firmenich SA), 2006, (priority 05.04.2005).
3) (a) Dupau P., Bonomo L., PCT Int. Appl. WO 2008/120174 (Innovaroma SA), 2008, (priority 03.04.2007). (b)
Dupau P., Bonomo L., PCT Int. Appl. WO 2008/120175 (Firmenich SA), 2008, (priority 03.04.2007).
4) Fehr C., Magpantay I., Vuagnoux M., Dupau P., Chem. Eur. J., 2011, 17, 1257–1260.
5) Bonomo L., Dupau P., Bonnaudet S., PCT Int. Appl. WO 2011/145032 (Firmenich SA), 2011, (priority 21.05.2010).
6) Bonomo L., Dupau P., Bonnaudet S., PCT Int. Appl. WO 2011/161570 (Firmenich SA), 2011, (priority 22.06.2010).
7) Dupau P. Top. Organomet. Chem., 2012. Accepted.