Construction and Catalysis Advances of Inorganic Chiral Nanostructures

Inorganic chiral structures with outstanding optical activity can extend optical signals to visible and near infrared regions due to their unique physical and chemical properties, which are of great significance for the detection and analysis of chirality, chiral synthesis, chiral sensing and related photoelectronic research. In the past two decades, the studies have been extensively carried out on inorganic chiral structures, and great progress has been made from synthesis methods, origins of chirality and practical applications. This review focuses on inorganic chiral nanomaterials with potential applications in chiral catalysis. Firstly, the unique chiral effect, common construction methods and chiral origin mechanism of single inorganic chiral nanoparticles are introduced, and the assembly methods of chiral hierarchical nanostructures using inorganic nanoparticles as the building blocks are briefly summarized. The applications of inorganic chiral materials in the field of chiral catalysis are emphasized. The related mechanisms of chiral metal nanostructures, chiral semiconductor nanostructures, chiral nanoceramics and chiral magnetic nanoparticles in chiral catalysis are discussed, and the latest representative progress is analyzed. At the end, the shortcomings and challenges of the existed inorganic chiral structures and catalytic performance are reviewed, and the future research direction is prospected.