A new technique using to recover ruthenium catalysts used in the manufacture of drugs could massively reduce the cost and simplify the development of pharmaceuticals.

In the trial, a ruthenium catalyst, which is widely used for the production of aromatic ketones (a pharmaceutical building block), was bound onto magnetic nanoparticles, and researchers at the University of North Carolina in the USA found that they could easily recycle the particles once the reaction had taken place.

The findings mean that the pharmaceutical industry might be able to get rid of the current process, which requires complex separation and purification techniques.

Led by Aiguo Hu, the researchers' results could also help to improve the efficiency of the reactions, because the traditional method of binding catalysts to a solid phase can often reduce the efficiency in the reaction, therefore having an adverse effect on yields.

Speaking in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), the researchers explained that the technique they had developed "should allow the design of other superparamagnetic nanoparticle-supported asymmetric catalysts for a wide range of organic transformations".

Catalysts have to be carefully recovered following a reaction, so as to prevent toxic residues from contaminating the product.


Ÿ Adfero Ltd