Ajinomoto Co., Ltd.

Yoshioki Komachiya

Hachiro Wakamatsu

Masao Honma

Toshihide Yukata

Teruo Uzuki

Mayumi Takahashi

Nobuyuki Yamakami

Misa Noda

When an alcohol or its hydrochloric or hydrobromic acid ester is held at 50.degree. to 200.degree. C and 10 to 500 atmospheres in the presence of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, the amide of a carboxylic acid, and a carbonylation catalyst, an aldehyde having one more carbon atom than the alcohol or ester is formed in a good yield. If the amide has at least one active hydrogen atom on its amide nitrogen, it further reacts with the aldehyde and carbon monoxide to form an N-acylamino acid by the reaction of U.S. Pat. No. 3,766,266.

Method of producing aldehydes by hydroformylation

Optically active amino acids N-acylated with carboxylic acids are readily racemized without decomposition at elevated temperature in inert organic solvents in which they are homogeneously soluble at the racemization temperature. When the deacylated amino acid is insoluble or only sparingly soluble in the solvent, the method permits a convenient work-up of the products of enzymatic deacylation of one enantiomorph of the N-acylamino acid in which the remaining enantiomorph is racemized for recycling to the deacylation step.

Method of racemizing optically active N-acylamino acids

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Yokohama, Japan

Yoshioki Komachiya