Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 2, 2025

Synthesis of pH Dependent Pyrazole, Imidazole, and Isoindolone Dipyrrinone Fluorophores using a Claisen-Schmidt Condensation Approach
Published on: June 10, 2021
Structure of a Dimeric BINOL-Imine-Zn(II) Complex and Its Role in Enantioselective Fluorescent Recognition
Kai Guo1, Ping Wang1, Wanli Tan1
1Key Laboratory of Medical Electrophysiology, Ministry of Education, School of Pharmacy of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou 646000, China.
Abstract:
A pyridine containing BINOL-based aldehyde (S)- or (R)-4 is found to show highly enantioselective fluorescent response toward phenylglycinol in the presence of Zn2+. A chirality matched dimeric BINOL-imine-Zn(II) complex is isolated from the reaction of (S)-4 with l-phenylglycinol and Zn2+ whose structure is established by X-ray analysis. Comparison of the structure of this SS-complex with a molecular modeling structure of the chirality mismatched SR-complex generated from the reaction of (S)-4 with d-phenylglycinol has provided important insight into the origin of the observed highly enantioselective fluorescent response. It is found that the solvent-accessible surface area of the chirality-matched SS-complex is much smaller than that of the chirality mismatched SR-complex, which gives the more tightly packed and structurally rigid SS-complex with greatly enhanced fluorescence.
Related Concept Videos
Stereoisomerism
Isomers are different chemical species that have the same chemical formula.
Transition metal complexes often exist as geometric isomers, in which the same atoms are connected through the same types of bonds but with differences in their orientation in space. Coordination complexes with two different ligands in the cis and trans positions from a ligand of interest form isomers. For example, the octahedral [Co(NH3)4Cl2]+ ion has two isomers (Figure 1) In the cis...
Metal-Ligand Bonds
In these complexes, transition metals form coordinate covalent bonds, a kind of Lewis acid-base interaction in which both of the electrons in the bond are contributed by a donor (Lewis base) to an electron acceptor (Lewis acid). The Lewis acid in...
Structural Isomerism
Isomers are different chemical species that have the same chemical formula. Structural isomerism of coordination compounds can be divided into two subcategories, the linkage isomers and coordination-sphere isomers.
Linkage isomers occur when the coordination compound contains a ligand that can bind to the transition metal center through two different atoms. For example, the CN− ligand can bind through the carbon atom or through the nitrogen atom. Similarly, SCN− can...
Colors and Magnetism
When atoms or molecules absorb light at the proper frequency, their electrons are excited to higher-energy orbitals. For many main group atoms and molecules, the absorbed photons are in the ultraviolet range of the electromagnetic spectrum, which cannot be detected by the human eye. For coordination compounds, the energy difference between the d orbitals often allows photons in the visible range to be absorbed and emitted, which is seen as colors by the human...
Valence Bond Theory
Prochirality

