Applications of Nanomaterials in Asymmetric Photocatalysis: Recent Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities

Abstract

Asymmetric catalysis is one of the most attractive strategies to obtain important enantiomerically pure chemicals with high quality and production. In addition, thanks to the abundant and sustainable advantages of solar energy, photocatalysis possesses great potential in environmentally benign reactions. Undoubtedly, asymmetric photocatalysis meets the strict demand of modern chemistry: environmentally friendly and energy‐sustainable alternatives. Compared with homogeneous asymmetric photocatalysis, heterogeneous catalysis has features of easy separation, recovery, and reuse merits, thus being cost‐ and time‐effective. Herein, the state‐of‐the‐art progress in asymmetric photocatalysis by heterogeneous nanomaterials is addressed. The discussion comprises two sections based on the type of nanomaterials: typical inorganic semiconductors like TiO2 and quantum dots and emerging porous materials including metal–organic frameworks, porous organic polymers, and organic cages. Finally, the challenges and future developments of heterogeneous asymmetric photocatalysis are proposed.

Nanoengineered chiral Pt-Ir alloys for high-performance enantioselective electrosynthesis

“…The report clearly illustrates the benefits of using alloys instead of pure metal phases in the frame of chiral recognition and enantioselective synthesis. The exceptional improvement of activity and durability of chiral-encoded metal alloys allows overcoming the current roadblocks for using these advanced materials as chiral sensors, enantiospecific adsorbers 57 , catalysts for asymmetric electrosynthesis, stereoselective heterogeneous catalysts 11 , and even as active materials in the frame of recently proposed strategies for asymmetric photocatalysis 58 – 60 . In addition to the intriguing fundamental aspects, this opens up very promising perspectives with respect to real-world applications.…”

Catalytic enantioselective C(sp3)–H functionalization involving radical intermediates

“…Another noteworthy kind of reactions involve the enantioselective functionalization of activated α-carbonyl C(sp 3 )-H bonds via radical addition to the corresponding enolate 9-12 or enamine 13,14 intermediates. Although significant, most of these reactions 15,16 do not involve C-H-derived radical species and thus are out of the scope of this Perspective unless otherwise discussed below.…”

Chirality communications between inorganic and organic compounds

“…And there is a large family of different materials with different features. Readers can find useful information in these comprehensive reviews 18,94,95 . In this section, we would like to discuss the enantioselective adsorption and catalysis on chiral surfaces (Figure 6A).…”