Controlled Catalytic Reduction in Synthesising Pure Tetrahydrocurcumin
Chandra Sekhara Rao Nethinti *
Chemical Research and Development, APL Research Center II, Aurobindo Pharma Ltd., Indrakaran (V), Telangana, India and Department of Engineering Chemistry, Andhra University College of Engineering (A), Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Dhanraj T. S. S. Sundaram
Chemical Research and Development, APL Research Center II, Aurobindo Pharma Ltd., Indrakaran (V), Telangana, India.
Sarvesh Kumar
Chemical Research and Development, APL Research Center II, Aurobindo Pharma Ltd., Indrakaran (V), Telangana, India.
Sreenivasulu Boju
Chemical Research and Development, APL Research Center II, Aurobindo Pharma Ltd., Indrakaran (V), Telangana, India.
Raghu Babu Korupolu
Department of Engineering Chemistry, Andhra University College of Engineering (A), Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Annapurna Nowduri
Department of Engineering Chemistry, Andhra University College of Engineering (A), Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Uttam Kumar Ray
Chemical Research and Development, APL Research Center II, Aurobindo Pharma Ltd., Indrakaran (V), Telangana, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Pd-Catalyzed hydrogenation process has been developed to synthesize tetrahydrocurcumin from synthetic curcumin. Use of diphenyl sulphide as catalyst poison is crucial for lowering the activity of the catalyst and thus reduces impurity formation. The process avoids column chromatography to achieve good quality tetrahydrocurcumin in cost effective manner. All the prepared compounds are characterized by FT-IR, 1H NMR, mass and HPLC techniques.
Keywords: Curcumin, tetrahydrocurcumin, hydrogenation, poison catalyst, diphenylsulphide