Enantiomer systems of carnitinamide inorganic salts: introductory studies to a successful entrainment resolution

The ready availability of (R)-carnitinamide, an immediate synthetic precursor of (R)-carnitine, is an ambitious goal and resolutions, due to the very low cost of racemic carnitinamide, can be the most convenient technology to achieve it. Before developing a new advantageous resolution of carnitinamide chloride by entrainment, we characterized the enantiomer systems formed by the chloride, nitrate and sulfate of carnitinamide, mainly by DSC and IR analyses, proving that a different type of racemate is produced by each of these salts: a conglomerate by the chloride, a racemic compound by the nitrate and a solid solution, a very rare type of enantiomer system, by the sulfate.