Nanoporous 7 mum thin opal films comprising 35 layers of 200 nm diameter SiO2 spheres were assembled on Pt electrodes and modified with chiral selector moieties on the silica surface. Diffusion of chiral redox species through the opals was studied by cyclic voltammetry. The chiral opal films demonstrate high selectivity for transport of one enantiomer over the other. This chiral permselectivity is attributed to the surface-facilitated transport utilizing noncovalent interactions between the chiral permeant molecules and surface-bound chiral selectors.
Dedicated to the memory of Professor Michael Bendikov: a brilliant scientist, a great friend, and a courageous man ties in the range of 1.2-1.8, which were not significantly affected by the structure of the surface-immobilized chiral electors. This selectivity is on par with most reported polymer-based solid membranes and bulk liquid membranes. The enantioselectivity results from the surface-facilitated mechanism of transport of enantiomers through the mesopores.
Abstract. We prepared nanoporous silica colloidal films whose nanopores were filled with polymer brushes containing chiral selector moieties in the side chains, or with a chiral polypeptide. Both types of polymers were grown inside the nanopores using surface-initiated polymerization and thus were covalently attached to the nanopore surface. We studied the enantioselective permeation in the resulting porefilled films and found that they possess a relatively high enantioselectivity. Increasing the number of chiral selectors inside the nanop-
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