Organic Process Research & Development
Article
bottleneck volume but caused the increase of residual 10 in
purified 1 in the pilot manufacturing. After finding it, we
developed two reliable purification processes. The first was
slurry washing including clever polymorphic control using only
acetone and water. The second was salt formation of 10 to
improve stability and build a rational recrystallization process
based on solubility by excluding the possibility of ionic
interaction of 1 and 10. The latter process led to reliable
control of the impurity 10 without increasing maximum
volume.
EXPERIMENTAL SECTION
■
All experiments were run under a nitrogen atmosphere.
Solvents and reagents were obtained from commercial sources
and used without further purification. High performance liquid
chromatographic (HPLC) analysis was carried out using a
Shimadzu LC-10ADVP. Reaction heat was measured using
Figure 7. Stability of crude 1 (influence of residual acid).
transition of the modified process are shown in Figure 8. In the
existing process purified 1 was precipitated from the dissolution
1
Mettler Toledo RC1e. H NMR spectra were recorded on a
300 MHz Varian FT spectrometer. XRPD was measured using
Rigaku RINT TTR III. Melting points were measured with
Rigaku Industrial Corporation Thermo plus DSC8230S.
Infrared spectra were recorded with Thermo Fisher Scientific
MAGNA560. The solvent composition after distillation was
simulated using CHEMCAD 5.3.0
Preparation of the intermediate 10 by the improved
process. To the reactor water (660 kg) were charged 12 (330
kg, 1589 mol) and toluene (828 kg) after the nitrogen purge.
The mixture was adjusted to 15 °C (internal temperature), and
triethylamine (354 kg, 3495 mol) was charged. To the mixture
was charged slowly 4 (232 kg 1652 mol) in toluene (285 kg).
After stirring for 1 h, the reaction mixture was adjusted to 25
°C and the aqueous layer was removed. To the toluene layer
were added water (653 kg) and 25% aq NaOH (636 kg, 3972
mol) at 25 °C. Then it was heated to 45 °C, stirred for 2 h, and
cooled to 25 °C. After the toluene layer was removed, the
aqueous layer was concentrated to remove residual toluene and
ethanol. To the aqueous solution was added 20 w/w % aq
H2SO4 to adjust the pH 9.0. After the addition of catalyst
Na2WO4·2H2O (5.2 kg, 16 mol) was charged slowly 35% H2O2
aqueous solution (309 kg, 3178 mol) at 25 °C, and the mixture
was stirred for 2.5 h. Then 13.2 w/w % aq H2SO3 (1365 kg)
was added to quench the reaction. It was heated to 40 °C, and
20% aq H2SO4 was charged to adjust the pH 2.5. The slurry
was cooled to 25 °C and stirred for 30 min. The precipitated
intermediate 10 was filtered, washed with water, and dried in
vacuum (397 kg, 95%). 10 is already known, and the 1H NMR
data corresponded to that reported.5 1H NMR (300 MHz,
CDCl3) δ 3.99 (d, 1H, J = 9 Hz), 3.67 (s, 3H), 3.27 (m, 1H),
2.00−2.32 (m, 5H), 1.49−1.62 (m, 2H), 1.39 (s, 3H), 1.16−
1.32 (m, 2H).
Preparation of purified 1 by the improved process. 10
(475 kg, 1804 mol) was charged with a catalytic amount of
DMF (2.6 kg, 36 mol) and toluene (1604 kg). The resulting
slurry was heated to about 50 °C, and then thionyl chloride
(236 kg, 1984 mol) was dropped slowly. After the reaction
mixture was stirred about 30 min, it was cooled to 30 °C. Next,
pyridylamine (11) (322 kg, 1984 mol) and pyridine (314 kg,
3968 mol) dissolved in toluene were added, and the resulting
slurry was stirred about 1 h. After the reaction was completed,
purified water (1425 L) was added. The crude 1, whose
polymorph was form II, was filtered and washed with purified
water. Half the amount of crude 1 was used in the following
step. To crude 1 and acetone (3040 kg) was added sodium
Figure 8. Modified concentration transition of the recrystallization
process.
in 95% acetone/water during the concentration but the
solubility of the sodium salt in the ratio was low. The process
could cause the precipitation of 10 salt, and it could be
enclosed in the crystal of 1. To improve the removal effect, the
precipitation point of form I was set at 80 v/v % acetone/water
in which the solubility of sodium salt of 10 was sufficiently
large. The first concentration was performed under the
solubility of form I to certainly prevent the precipitation.
After that water was added to 80% acetone/water of
supersaturation concentration where visible nucleation of
form I occurred. Then concentration, water addition, and
cooling were followed. By the changes, the removal rate of 10
was dramatically and reproducibly increased to more than 83%.
Using the recrystallization procedure, we could produce
purified 1 with no 10 at an average 94.7% yield (348 kg/lot,
6 lots). The rational building of the recrystallization procedure
led to the highly reliable control of impurity 10 without
increasing maximum volume.
CONCLUSION
■
An optimized process to manufacture 1 could be developed.
The telescopic process to synthesize 10 was realized by
changing the starting material, coupling reaction conditions,
and the order of oxidation and hydrolysis reaction from the
early process. Then we found the interesting knowledge that
Na2WO4/H2O2 oxidation could be accelerated in weakly basic
conditions, and it was useful to control the residual 14 in 10.
Changing the dissolving solvent from acetone to 95 v/v %
acetone/water in the recrystallization step reduced the
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Org. Process Res. Dev. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX