Computer-assisted automatic synthesis II.Development of a fully automated apparatusfor preparing substituted N–(carboxyalkyl)amino acids

[摘要] A versatile automated apparatus, equipped with an artificialintelligence has been developed which may be used to prepare andisolate a wide variety of compounds. The prediction of the optimumreaction conditions and the reaction control in real time, areaccomplished using novel kinetic equations and substituent effects inan artificial intelligence software which has already reported [1].This paper deals with the design and construction of the fullyautomated system, and its application to the synthesis of asubstituted N-(carboxyalkyl)amino acid. The apparatus is composedof units for perfoming various tasks, e.g. reagent supply,reaction, purification and separation, each linked to a controlsystem. All synthetic processes including washing and drying of theapparatus after each synthetic run were automatically performedfrom the mixing of the reactants to the isolation of the products aspowders with purities of greater than 98%. The automatedapparatus has been able to run for 24 hours per day, and the averagerate of synthesis of substituted N-(carboxyalkyl)amino acids hasbeen three compounds daily. The apparatus is extremely valuablefor synthesizing many derivatives of one particular compoundstructure. Even if the chemical yields are low under the optimumconditions, it is still possible to obtain a sufficient amount of thedesired product by repetition of the reaction. Moreover it waspossible to greatly reduce the manual involvement of the manysyntheses which are a necessary part of pharmaceutical research.

[学科分类] 分析化学