posted on 2018-12-21, 00:00authored byJun Yong Chan, Huacheng Zhang, Yada Nolvachai, Yaoxin Hu, Haijin Zhu, Maria ForsythMaria Forsyth, Qinfen Gu, David E Hoke, Xiwang Zhang, Philip J Marriot, Huanting Wang
Homochiral metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have gained much attention because of their chiral properties and disposition for chiral separation. However, the fabrication of high-quality homochiral MOF membranes remains challenging because of the difficulty in controlling growth of MOF membranes with chiral functionalities. A homochiral zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) membrane is reported for efficient chiral separation. The membrane is synthesized by incorporating a natural amino acid, l-histidine (l-His), into the framework of ZIF-8. The homochiral l-His-ZIF-8 membrane exhibits a good selectivity for the R-enantiomer of 1-phenylethanol over the S-enantiomer, showing a high enantiomeric excess value up to 76 %.