A Thirty-Year Journey to the Creation of the First Enantiomerically Enriched Molecular Sieve

In 1987, our research on how to synthesize a chiral zeolite began. Finally, in 2017, my co-workers and I succeeded in preparing and characterizing the first enantiomerically enriched molecular sieve. Here, I recount how we initiated our work on synthesizing a chiral molecular sieve, the lessons learned from the many failures we had over the years, and what were some of the key advances that ultimately led to the successful synthesis and proof that we had in fact prepared an enantiomerically enriched molecular sieve. I have no doubts that numerous other chiral molecular sieves will now be elucidated and that clever applications of these materials will ultimately be realized.