SPARTAX Chemicals 

In a world characterised by a growing population and dwindling natural resources, Spartax Chemicals aims to develop an ensemble of approaches for the production of added-value chemicals employing renewable starting materials.

Sparteine is our first case study.

We hope that the increased availability of both enantiomers will break barriers to the use of Sparteine in synthesis and catalysis and reduce the cost of downstream specialty products that depend on Sparteine along their production.

The Importance of Sparteine Sparteine is a natural alkaloid widely used in materials and medicinal research in an industrial context, as attested by the numerous patents and scientific publications. Whereas the use of (+)-Sparteine is limited by its natural availability, L-(-)-Sparteine is a well-known chiral diamine used in asymmetric synthesis. It should be noted that asymmetric synthesis is nowadays a key process in the modern chemical industry, with sizable impact in the production of pharmaceuticals and high-performance materials. In the past, the scientific community has faced Sparteine shortages, highlighting the importance of this compound for both academic research and industrial applications. Although asymmetric total syntheses of Sparteine have been previously achieved, their multistep nature places them far from practical use. We developed a patented process that exploits food waste streams for the production of enantiomerically pure Sparteine.