Design, Synthesis and Applications of Chiral Metal-Organic Frameworks

Chiral metal-organic frameworks have shown important applications in the identification and separation of enantiomers and asymmetric heterogeneous catalysis, owing to their structural diversities and multifunctionalities. Recently, the applications of chiral metal-organic frameworks have been expanded to other research fields, such as circularly polarized luminescence and chiral ferroelectrics. Compared with achiral metal-organic frameworks, it is highly challenging to synthesize chiral metal-organic frameworks, because the chirality introduction usually results in the difficulty of the crystallization and purification process for the design of chiral metal-organic frameworks. In this review, we discussed three main strategies that have been utilized to construct chiral metal-organic frameworks, including direct synthesis by chiral ligands, spontaneous resolution with achiral ligands or in the presence of chiral-template, and post-synthetic modification of achiral metal-organic frameworks. Moreover, the recent research progresses of chiral metal-organic frameworks in chiral molecular recognition, enantiomer separation, asymmetric catalysis, circularly polarized luminescence, and chiral ferroelectrics are discussed.