Installing Stable Molecular Chirality within the Walls of Periodic Mesoporous Organosilicas via Self-Assembly

The synthesis of highly ordered chiral periodic mesoporous organosilica (PMO) materials is described using a novel approach. Chiral dopants featuring removable chirality were combined with freely rotating bulk monomers, resulting in a bulk chiral material with handedness related to the chiral dopant. Once incorporated into the PMO, removal of the chiral-linker in the dopant is readily accomplished and occurs with complete preservation of the circular dichroism signal in the PMO material, whereas in the precursor molecule, this transformation would lead to a total loss of chirality. The chirality of the PMO material is retained even after prolonged hydrothermal treatment, indicating stable chirality induction within the walls of solid PMO.