The Stereoconfiguration Design, Resolution, and Application of Chiral Metallo-Organic Cages (MOCs)

Chiral metallo-organic cages (MOCs), assembled from organic ligands and metal ions/clusters, integrate the characteristics of well-defined shapes, sizes, internal cavities, peripheral apertures and chirality, serving as simple models of biological receptors, and allowing for extended applications as biomimetics in diverse fields of science and technology. In this concept, a brief survey of recent works focusing on the assembly and applications of chiral MOCs in which the chirality originating in the stereoconfiguration of metal centers. Although the dynamic nature of coordination bonds causes racemization, chiral-induction, chiral-transfer or spontaneous resolution provides facile and effective approach to chiral MOCs. Moreover, due to the absolute chiral environments in MOCs, practical applications in the fields of stereochemical memory, enantio-recognition, separation, asymmetric catalysis, circularly polarized luminescence and second-order nonlinear optical materials can be realized. It's hoped the described chirality of MOCs at supramolecular level could be extended to develop new and valuable chiral materials in chemistry, physics, and beyond.