Potential‐Induced Fine‐Tuning of the Enantioaffinity of Chiral Metal Phases

• Published in: Angewandte Chemie Vol. 131; no. 11; pp. 3509 - 3513
• Main Authors: Assavapanumat, Sunpet, Yutthalekha, Thittaya, Garrigue, Patrick, Goudeau, Bertrand, Lapeyre, Véronique, Perro, Adeline, Sojic, Neso, Wattanakit, Chularat, Kuhn, Alexander
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Weinheim Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 11.03.2019
• Subjects: Biotechnology; Character recognition; Chemistry; Coding; Discrimination; Electric potential; Electrostatic properties; Elektrochromatographie; Enantiomers; Enantioselektivität; Heavy metals; Liquid crystals; Mesoporöse Metalle; Metals; Microchannels; Microfluidics; Molekulares Prägen; Pharmacology; Platin; Platinum; Tryptophan; Tuning
• ISSN: 0044-8249; 1521-3757
• DOI: 10.1002/ange.201812057

Concepts leading to single enantiomers of chiral molecules are of crucial importance for many applications, including pharmacology and biotechnology. Recently, mesoporous metal phases encoded with chiral information have been developed. Fine‐tuning of the enantioaffinity of such structures by imposing an electric potential is proposed, which can influence the electrostatic interactions between the chiral metal and the target enantiomer. This allows the binding affinity between the chiral metal and the target enantiomer to be increased, and thus, the discrimination between two enantiomers to be improved. The concept is illustrated by generating chiral encoded metals in a microfluidic channel by reduction of a platinum salt in the presence of a liquid crystal and l‐tryptophan as a chiral model template. After removal of the template molecules, the modified microchannel retains a pronounced chiral character. The chiral recognition efficiency of the microchannel can be fine‐tuned by applying a suitable potential to the metal phase. This enables the separation of both components of a racemate flowing through the channel. The approach constitutes a promising and complementary strategy in the frame of chiral discrimination technologies. Affinitäts‐Tuning: Das elektrische Potential einer mesoporösen chiralen Platinphase kann gezielt eingestellt werden, wodurch die quantitative Enantiomerentrennung eines Tryptophan‐Racemats möglich wird. Ein angelegtes Potential beeinflusst die elektrostatischen Wechselwirkungen und somit die Enantioaffinität zwischen dem chiralen Metall und dem ausgewählten Enantiomer.