Synthesis of Chiral Room Temperature Ionic Liquids from Amino Acids - Application in Chiral Molecular Recognition

A series of structurally new room temperature chiral ionic liquids based on an imidazolium group and derived from natural amino acids have been synthesized and studied as chiral shift agents for the chiral discrimination of enantiomeric carboxylate salts. This family of imidazolium salts can be prepared by a simple synthetic approach and most of the components are liquid at room temperature. The solid to liquid transformation temperatures can be as low as 49 degrees C. The analysis of the supramolecular structure of the resulting CILs can be used advantageously to understand the potential for the selective recognition of different hosts.