Chiral Lanthanide Metal-Organic Frameworks

Abstract

Chiral metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted much attention, not only due to their potential applications in enantioselective separation and catalysis, but also because of many advantages such as the high density of active catalytic centers, high level of porosity, regular and reliable crystalline nature, and relatively easy immobilization as compared to other heterogeneous systems. As metal-connecting nodes of MOFs, a large number of chemical synthetic strategies have focused on the transition metal ions which exhibit specific coordination geometries and restricted stereochemistry in the past two decades. However, the researches on chiral lanthanide MOFs are still limited up to now because of high coordination numbers, kinetic lability, weak stereochemical preference, and more variable nature of the coordination sphere for lanthanide ions. In this chapter, we would give a brief introduction to highlight the synthetic approaches reported and the structural features of chiral lanthanide MOFs or coordination polymer, which may be beneficial to explore structurally and functionally defined chiral solid materials.