A substantial suppression of the chemical reaction in favor of the enzymatic reaction has been achieved in the addition of hydrogen cyanide to aldehydes. This reaction with mandelonitrile lyase (“(R)-oxynitrilase”) in ethyl acetate affords the cyanohydrins 3 with up to 99% ee; in H2O/EtOH, maximally 86% ee was achieved.
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Effenberger et al. (1987) studied this question.
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