We facilely synthesized a novel guest-free homochiral metal-organic framework, (Cu 4 L 4 ) n [H 2 L ¼ N-(2-hydroxybenzyl)-L-leucine] in space group P1. The (Cu 4 L 4 ) n nanocrystals exhibit high electrochemical activity for rapidly discriminating chiral a-methylbenzylamine enantiomers and quantitatively determining the enantiomeric excess in the chiral amine mixture.Many important molecules in the modern pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries, are chiral-that is, they are not superimposable on their mirror image, the pair of asymmetric molecules are known as enantiomers. The recognition and quantication of enantiomers is a major challenge particularly owing to their identical physical and chemical properties in an achiral environment.1 In many cases, one of the enantiomers exhibits the desired responses while the other is inactive or even toxic.2-4 The present technology depends largely upon nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), gas chromatography (GC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) based on homochiral stationary phases (CSPs), which is of particular importance for laboratories and industries in the discovery and development of enantiomeric substances and quality control of corresponding products.5-7 However, these methods require high concentrations of analytes, sophisticated operation, relatively expensive instrumentation, and GC and HPLC are also typically time-consuming. 8,9 Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have more than 80 years of history, 10,11 considerable advances have been made on the fundamental study.
12,13Although the approach behaves special desired selectivity because the MIPs create three-dimensional cross-linked polymers with tailor-made memory of the shape, size and functional groups for a template or target molecule, 14,15 this sometimes also suffers from some problems, such as incomplete template removal, poor mass transfer, low binding capacity and slow binding kinetics, which restricts its applications in various aspects.16 In contrast, the electrochemical sensors can provide highly selective, low cost, fast speed, real time and on-line operation. Unlike chromatographic instruments, the technology can be easily adapted for detecting a wide range and low concentrations of analytes, while remaining inexpensive.
17However, there are only a handful of progress at the present chiral sensing using this approach.The key of the electrochemical chiral sensing is the material used to prepare the sensor's electroactive surface. The emerging chiral metal-organic framework (CMOFs) are the intriguing class of crystalline materials formed usually by the selfassembly of metal ions and chiral polydentate ligands. These materials are highly promising for electrochemical chiral sensors owing to ultrahigh surface area, precise network structures, ne-tuned chiral channels and pores, regularly ordered functionalities and host-guest interactions involved.18,19 At present, however, only a few achiral MOFs have been attempted as electrochemical sensors for detecting a few achiral analyte...