Transforming Silver Nanoclusters from Racemic to Homochiral via Seeded Crystallization
Along Ma, Wenjun Du, Jiawei Wang, Kefan Jiang, Cheng Zhang, Wenhan Sheng, Haiyan Zheng, Rongchao Jin, Shuxin Wang
Abstract
High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide Chirality has risen as an attractive topic in materials research in recent years, but the attainment of enantiopure materials remains a major challenge. Herein, we obtained homochiral nanoclusters by a recrystallization strategy, without any chiral factors (i.e., chiral ligands, counterions, etc.). Through the rapid flipping of configuration of silver nanoclusters in solution, the initial racemic Ag 40 (triclinic) nanoclusters are converted to homochiral (orthorhombic) as revealed by X-ray crystallography. In the seeded crystallization, one homochiral Ag 40 crystal is used as a seed to direct the growth of crystals with specific chirality. Furthermore, enantiopure Ag 40 nanoclusters can be used as amplifiers for the detection of chiral carboxylic drugs. This work not only provides chiral conversion and amplification strategies to obtain homochiral nanoclusters but also explains the chirality origin of nanoclusters at the molecular level.