Engineering Commons^™

Catalytic Hydrogenation Of Amino Acids Using Polymer-Derived Microenvironments, Rachel Karno

Honors College

Amino acids are organic compounds that can be found all around us in the world in the building blocks of proteins and peptides. One class of compounds which can be synthesized from amino acids are amino alcohols, another critical compound in society. Amino alcohols are key components in agricultural products and pharmaceutical products. Therefore, developing an efficient and cost-effective method for performing this transformation is an important area of research. The currently used industrial process is to reduce petroleum-derived amino acids with NaBH₄. However, this process is time-consuming and costly because of the need for an intermediate stage …