Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 16, 2026

From Molecules to Materials: Engineering New Ionic Liquid Crystals Through Halogen Bonding
Published on: March 24, 2018
Chiral molecular imprinting in liquid-crystalline network
J-D Marty1, H Gornitzka, M Mauzac
1Laboratoire Interactions Moléculaires et Réactivité Chimique et Photochimique, UMR CNRS 5623, Université Paul Sabatier, 118 route de Narbonne, 31062 Toulouse, France.
Abstract:
A cholesteric imprinted elastomer was obtained by cross-linking a nematic side-chain polysiloxane around a chiral template. The template was first linked to some functionalised groups of the polymer via hydrogen-bound interactions, then was removed by washing. The sample was macroscopically oriented during the synthesis; so, both a molecular chirality and a supramolecular phase chirality were topologically imprinted inside the network. Batch rebinding experiments, performed in the presence of the template or of the other enantiomer, showed that the imprinted polymer has a pronounced stereo-selectivity towards the template enantiomer. The rebinding capacity appeared to be greater than an unimprinted mesogenic network as well as than an imprinted non mesogenic one.
Related Concept Videos
Chirality
Chiral objects exhibit a sense of handedness when they interact with another chiral object. For example, our left foot can only fit in the left shoe and not in the right shoe. Achiral objects — objects that have...
Prochirality
Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers
Stereoisomerism of Cyclic Compounds
Chirality in Nature
Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur
A consequence of chirality is the need for enantiomeric resolution. While this is theoretically possible for all...

