Chiral DHIP-Based Metal-Organic Frameworks for Enantioselective Recognition and Separation

The concept of prochirality leads to the nomenclature of the individual faces of a molecule and plays a crucial role in the enantioselective reaction. It is a concept where two or more achiral molecules react to produce chiral products. A typical process is the reaction of an achiral ketone to generate a chiral alcohol. Here, the achiral reactant reacts with an achiral reducing agent, sodium borohydride, to generate an equimolar mixture of the chiral enantiomers of the product. For example, an...

Chirality is most prevalent in carbon-based tetrahedral compounds, but this important facet of molecular symmetry extends to sp3-hybridized nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur centers, including trivalent molecules with lone pairs. Here, the lone pair behaves as a functional group in addition to the other three substituents to form an analogous tetrahedral center that can be chiral.
A consequence of chirality is the need for enantiomeric resolution. While this is theoretically possible for all...

Molecules that possess multiple chiral centers can afford a large number of stereoisomers. For instance, while some molecules like 2-butanol have one chiral center, defined as a tetrahedral carbon atom with four different substituents attached, several molecules like butane-2,3-diol have multiple chiral centers. A simple formula to predict the number of stereoisomers possible for a molecule with n chiral centers is 2n. However, there can be a lower number where some of the stereoisomers are...

Replacing each alpha-hydrogen in chloroethane by bromine (or a different functional group) yields a pair of enantiomers. Such protons are called prochiral or enantiotopic and are related by a mirror plane. Enantiotopic protons are chemically equivalent in an achiral environment. Because most proton NMR spectra are recorded using achiral solvents, enantiotopic hydrogens yield a single signal.
In chiral compounds such as 2-butanol, replacing the methylene hydrogens at C3 produces a pair of...

Metal ions can be separated from one another by complexation with organic ligands–the chelating agent– to form uncharged chelates. Here, the chelating agent must contain hydrophobic groups and behave as a weak acid, losing a proton to bind with the metal. Since most organic ligands used in this process are insoluble or undergo oxidation in the aqueous phase, the chelating agent is initially added to the organic phase and extracted into the aqueous phase. The metal-ligand complex is...

A racemic mixture, or racemate, is an equimolar mixture of enantiomers of a molecule that can be separated using their unique interaction with chiral molecules or media. Racemic mixtures are denoted by the (±)- prefix. This ‘optical rotation descriptor’ applies to the whole solution of a racemic mixture rather than a specific stereoisomer. Enantiomers typically have the same physical and chemical properties. Hence, they are not easily separable. However, enantiomers can exhibit...