Incorporation of Homochirality into Zeolitic Imidazole Framework Membrane for Efficient Chiral Separation.

Homochiral metal organic framework (MOF) has gained much attention owing to its excellent chiral properties for chiral separation. However, the fabrication of high-quality homochiral MOF membranes remains a challenge due to the difficulty in controlling growth of MOF membranes with chiral functionalities. Herein we report a homochiral zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) membrane for efficient chiral separation. The membrane is synthesized by incorporating a natural amino acid, L-histidine (L-His), into ZIF-8's framework. 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%.