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Updated: Jun 1, 2026

Development of Heterogeneous Enantioselective Catalysts using Chiral Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs)
Published on: January 17, 2020
From design to application: chiral Cu based metal-organic frameworks for superior enantioselective resolution
Ding Liao1, Haiyan Li1, Zhongming Liu1
1School of Chemistry and Life Science, Advanced Institute of Materials Science, Changchun University of Technology, Jilin, PR China.
None:
Increasing attention is being paid to ensuring that the therapeutically active enantiomer, rather than a racemic mixture, is administered in clinical treatment. Here we report a straightforward one-pot synthesis of a pair of chiral copper-based metal‑organic frameworks (Cu-MOFs) using Cu2+ ions and modulator benzoic acid and 4,4'-((2,2-bis((pyridin-4-yloxy)methyl)propane-1,3-diyl)bis(oxy))dipyridine(TPOM), affording two enantiomeric frameworks designated 1 and 1'. In parallel, we prepared novel chiral nanocomposites (Cu-MOF@SiO2) and introduced them as chiral stationary phases (CSPs) into an Agilent 1260 Infinity II empty HPLC column by a dry-loading procedure (referred to as column A). The chromatographic performance of column A is evaluated with racemic mixtures. Remarkably, column A successfully resolves more than ten pairs of commonly used drug enantiomers. These results demonstrate that the nanocomposite-functionalized column exhibits high enantioselectivity and excellent chiral resolution for a broad range of racemic analytes, especially alcohols and ketones.
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