Flavours and Fragrances

Manufacturing and development of flavours and fragrances is very quickly developing part of industry. Necessity to react for new requirements of customers and effort to distinguish from the others lead to development of enormous quantity of new different substances.

Although flavours and fragrances are substances which are for our lives not absolutely necessary they make our lives much more pleasant. Of course because flavours and fragrances are determined to be in close contact with human body, the strict toxicological and ecological requirements have to be fulfilled before the substance is introduced to the market.

Fragrances

Artificial fragrances are everyday part of our lives. On the one hand they are contained in luxury perfumes but they are also constituents of everyday used materials like cleaning and washing agents, soaps, laundry detergents, cosmetic preparations and many others. For all this agents it is required to have a nice smell to delight final consumer. Especially in the case of luxury perfumes the lot of financial costs is spent for uniqueness.

Synhydrid® is used in many syntheses of artificial fragrances. In this case its capability to reduce carboxylic acid esters to alcohols or partially to aldehydes effectively is used very often. But also reduction of aldehydes or ketones to alcohols or partial reduction of nitriles to aldehydes can be for this area very interesting.

2-ethyl-4-(2,2,3-trimethyl-3-cyclopenten-1-yl)-2-buten-1-ol

2-ethyl-4-(2,2,3-trimethyl-3-cyclopenten-1-yl)-2-buten-1-ol is a fragrant compound having powerful aroma with true sandalwood note. Synhydrid® is used as reducing agent for reduction of 2-ethyl-4-(2,2,3-trimethyl-3-cyclopenten-1-yl)-2-butenal to desired 2-ethyl-4-(2,2,3-trimethyl-3-cyclopenten-1-yl)-2-buten-1-ol in final step of synthesis. This reaction is a typical example of successful Synhydrid® application for reduction of aldehyde to alcohol.

Ambroxide

Besides fragrances Synhydrid® is also used during synthesis of fragrance fixative ambroxide which is synthetic substitute for natural ambergris. Ambergris or grey amber is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull grey or blackish colour produced in the digestive system of sperm whale. Freshly produced ambergris has a marine, repulsive odor. It acquires a sweet, earthy scent as it ages.

Ambroxide fixes the own fragrance substance in perfume preparation to smell for the longest possible time and also provides to perfumes traditional ambergris note. Because ambroxide substitutes ambergris in perfumery and its consumption is very high it can be said that ambroxide and therefore also Synhydrid®, which is dominantly used during synthesis of ambergris, help to save population of sperm whales.

Ambroxide is chemically dodecahydro-3a,6,6,9a-tetramethylnaphtho[2,1-b]furan. Synhydrid® is used in reducing step where (3aα,5aβ,9aα,9bβ)decahydro-3a,6,6,9a-tetramethylnaphtho[2,1-b]furan-2(1H)-one is reduced to 2,5,5,8a-tetramethyl-2-(2-hydroxyethyl)-3-hydroxydecalin.

In general it is total reduction of lactone to diol. This step is described in European patent application EP0165458 or in the Spanish patent ES2195777.

Flavours

A similar case as fragrances are flavours except that for flavours the most important property is taste and not smell.

Menthol

Synhydrid® can be used in synthesis of menthol. Menthol is an organic compound, more specifically a monoterpenoid, made synthetically or obtained from the oils of corn mint, peppermint or other mints. It is a waxy, clear or white crystalline substance, which is solid at room temperature and melts slightly above.