The optical purity of a product at the reactor outlet depends not only on the enantioselectivity of the catalyst, but also on the reactor configuration. Different reactor configurations are compared with respect to the enantiomeric excess (ee) at a respective conversion that can be achieved in a kinetic resolution of a racemate. For batch, fed-batch and plug flow reactors enantioselectivities (E value) of 35 are sufficient to achieve high enantiomeric excess. For a continuously operated stirred tank reactor high ee values are only obtained for E values higher than 190.