Novel nanohybrid materials based on l-leucine on hydrotalcite clays: Asymmetric epoxidation reaction of chalcona

The assembly of biorgano-guest to laminar inorganic solids is of increasing interest to their versatile applications in biotechnology or catalysis. We synthesized two different biohybrid materials based on l-leu into the hydrotalcite rehydrated under ultrasound treatment (HTrus), in which l-leu was immobilized by intercalation or by replacing of hydroxyl ions at the edge sites of HTrus. Separately l-leu and HTrus as catalysts showed very poor activity and lack of enantioselectivity in the epoxidation reaction of α,β-unsaturated ketones such as chalcone. Nevertheless, the catalysts presented high activity and even enantioselectivity towards the trans-(R,S)-epoxide depending on the l-leu location on the nanohybrid catalyst.