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Updated: May 28, 2026

Development of Heterogeneous Enantioselective Catalysts using Chiral Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs)

Development of Heterogeneous Enantioselective Catalysts using Chiral Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs)

Published on: January 17, 2020

"Cofactor"-controlled enantioselective catalysis.

Paweł Dydio¹, Christophe Rubay, Tendai Gadzikwa

¹Van't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Journal of the American Chemical Society

|October 4, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

A new achiral rhodium complex becomes chiral upon binding small guests, enabling asymmetric catalysis. The best guest molecules yielded hydrogenation catalysts with up to 99% enantioselectivity.

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Area of Science:

Organometallic Chemistry
Asymmetric Catalysis
Supramolecular Chemistry

Background:

Achiral catalysts typically lack enantioselectivity in chemical reactions.
Chiral catalysts are essential for synthesizing enantiomerically pure compounds.
Designing catalysts that can adapt their chirality is a significant challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop an achiral rhodium complex capable of asymmetric catalysis.
To investigate the use of chiral anion guests (cofactors) for inducing chirality.
To optimize cofactor selection for high enantioselectivity in hydrogenation reactions.

Main Methods:

Synthesis of an achiral bisphosphine rhodium complex with a guest binding site.
Screening of a library of chiral anion guests (cofactors).
Evaluation of the resulting chiral catalysts in asymmetric hydrogenation reactions.

Main Results:

The rhodium complex successfully recognized and bound chiral cofactors, becoming chiral.
Hydrogenation catalysts formed using the best cofactors achieved high enantioselectivity (up to 99% ee).
A competition experiment demonstrated that the optimal cofactor dominated catalysis even in a mixture.

Conclusions:

An achiral rhodium complex can be rendered chiral through guest binding, enabling asymmetric catalysis.
The selection of appropriate chiral cofactors is critical for achieving high enantioselectivity.
This system offers a versatile approach to developing tunable asymmetric hydrogenation catalysts.