Metal-organic cages (MOCs) as a new type of porous material with well-defined cavities were extensively pursued because of their relative ease of synthesis and their potential applications in host-guest chemistry, molecular recognition, separation, catalysis, gas storage, and drug delivery. Here, we first reported that a homochiral MOC [ZnL] is explored to fabricate [ZnL] coated capillary column for high-resolution gas chromatographic separation of a wide range of analytes, including n-alkanes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and positional isomers, especially for racemates. Various kinds of racemates such as alcohols, diols, epoxides, ethers, halohydrocarbons, and esters were separated with good enantioselectivity and reproducibility on the [ZnL] coated capillary column. The fabricated [ZnL] coated capillary column exhibited significant chiral recognition complementary to that of a commercial β-DEX 120 column and our recently reported homochiral porous organic cage CC3-R coated column. The results show that the homochiral MOCs will be very attractive as a new type of chiral selector in separation science.
A homochiral metal–organic framework (MOF) comprising [Co(L)(bpe)2(H2O)2]·H2O was prepared using (1R,2R)-(−)-1,2-cyclohexanedicarboxylic acid (H2L) and 1,2-bis(4-pyridyl)-ethylene as organic ligands. The homochiral MOF [Co(L)(bpe)2(H2O)2]·H2O was explored as chiral stationary phase (CSP) for high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) separation of racemates. Nine racemates including naphthol, alcohol, diol, amine, ketone, ether and organic acid were well separated on the homochiral MOF [Co(L)(bpe)2(H2O)2]·H2O column (250 mm long × 4.6 mm i.d.). The relative standard deviation for five replicate separations of 1,1′-bi-2-naphthol is 0.69% for the retention time, indicating that the good reproducibility and stability of the homochiral MOF column for HPLC enantioseparation. The results indicated that the homochiral MOF as CSP is practical, which promotes the application of homochiral MOFs in HPLC.
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