Production of L-DOPA under heterogeneous asymmetric catalysis

To generalize the use of heterogeneous asymmetric catalysis we developed a new process to produce L-DOPA via cinchonine mediated Pd/C asymmetric reduction of the corresponding cinnamic acid precursor. Reaction proceeded well giving rise to good optical yield (44%). The use of O, O'-dibenzyl groups in the substrate appears to be the key to this optical purity and deserves further investigation. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.