Spherical Core-Shell Sb@C for Tartaric Acid Enantioseparation

Abstract

The enantiomers are difficult to be separated by normal physical or chemical methods because of their mirror-image molecular structures with little difference, and the same melting point, boiling point, solubility/crystallinity and other properties. Enantiomers often exhibit different or opposite physiological or pharmacological activities, so it is necessary to develop chiral separation techniques to obtain single chiral enantiomers for further study of their physical and chemical properties. Herein, a simple one-pot method to synthesize Sb@C enantioseparation material with a controllable spherical core-shell structure was proposed, and the formation mechanism of the core-shell structure was clarified. Furthermore, capping of tartaric acid enantiomer on the Sb−S containing substance depending on complexation was verified an effective solution to design materials with enantioselectivity and the possible separation mechanism by hydrogen bonding based on sterical matching was also revealed. In addition, structure and enantioseparation capacity of the Sb@C materials are controllable by adjusting the ratio of Sb/S. The highest enantiomer separation capacity was up to ee=25.90 % in all the Sb@C materials. This work presented a feasible and relatively universal strategy to design enantioseparation materials with potential application.

Keywords: enantioseparation, spherical core-shell structure, Sb@C materials, capping, tartaric acid enantiomer