Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 2, 2026

Development of Heterogeneous Enantioselective Catalysts using Chiral Metal-Organic Frameworks MOFs
Published on: January 17, 2020
Chirality as a tool for function in porous organic cages
T Hasell1, M A Little1, S Y Chong1
1Univ Liverpool, Dept Chem, Crown St, Liverpool L69 7ZD, Merseyside, England, UK. t.hasell@liverpool.ac.uk aicooper@liverpool.ac.uk.
Abstract:
The control of solid state assembly for porous organic cages is more challenging than for extended frameworks, such as metal-organic frameworks. Chiral recognition is one approach to achieving this control. Here we investigate chiral analogues of cages that were previously studied as racemates. We show that chiral cages can be produced directly from chiral precursors or by separating racemic cages by co-crystallisation with a second chiral cage, opening up a route to producing chiral cages from achiral precursors. These chiral cages can be cocrystallized in a modular, 'isoreticular' fashion, thus modifying porosity, although some chiral pairings require a specific solvent to direct the crystal into the desired packing mode. Certain cages are shown to interconvert chirality in solution, and the steric factors governing this behavior are explored both by experiment and by computational modelling.
Related Concept Videos
Chirality in Nature
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
Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur
A consequence of chirality is the need for enantiomeric resolution. While this is theoretically possible for all...
Stereoisomerism of Cyclic Compounds

