Synthesis of chiral mesoporous silica and its potential application to asymmetric separation

Chiral mesoporous silica (CMS) has been successfully synthesized in the presence of basic amino acids; the use of basic amino acids in combination with the chiral anionic surfactant is advantageous for the formation of CMS in terms of uniformity in the twisted morphology. We first demonstrate that thus obtained chiral mesoporous silicas can be used for the enantioselective separation of racemic compounds; the helical rod-shaped CMS is found to be capable of asymmetric separation of racemic N-trifluoroacetylalanine ethyl ester (CF3CO-Ala-OEt). The left handedness-rich CMS shows asymmetric preferential adsorption of the L isomer and vice versa.