Metallo-Supramolecular Materials for Chiral Discrimination and Enantiomeric Separation (2014-2018)

Separating mixtures of molecules is one of the most enduring challenges in the chemical sciences and accounts for a significant cost burden in many industrial applications. This project will design and prepare new chiral self-assembled materials that contain cavities of predictable sizes and shapes. These materials, including molecular capsules, cages and network solids, will act to selectivity bind different chemical substrates within their chiral encapsulated spaces, thus enabling the straight-forward separation of racemic mixtures of molecules. Small molecules with enantiomeric purity are a fundamental requirement as starting materials for drug development and a wide range of pharmaceutical applications.