Patent ID: 8278483

Claim:
A process for synthesis of a compound comprising a shikimic acid head group based cationic amphiphile of formula A: wherein each of R 1 and R 2 is independently hydrogen or a lipophilic moiety containing at least eight carbon atoms, provided both R 1 and R 2 are not hydrogen; R 3 is an alkyl group (C 1 -C 5 , straight or branched); n is an integer between 7 and 21; and X is a chlorine or bromine atom comprising: (a) coupling a mixed primary-tertiary lipophilic aliphatic alkyl amine containing saturated or unsaturated aliphatic hydrocarbon chains with Shikimic acid in a polar aprotic solvent in presence of amide bond forming reagents to obtain the corresponding aliphatic hydrophobic amide intermediate; (b) quaternizing the hydrophobic amide obtained in step (a) with excess of appropriate alkyl iodides to obtain the corresponding quaternized amphiphilic ammonium iodides intermediate; and (c) subjecting the quaternized amphi philic intermediate obtained above in step (b) to ion exchange chromatography halide ion exchange resin and mixed polar organic solvent as the eluent.