Strategies to construct homochiral metal-organic frameworks: ligands selection and practical techniques

The booming development of homochiral metal-organic frameworks (HMOFs) since the start of the 21st century has attracted considerable attention from the scientific community. With the features inherited from MOFs, HMOFs have great potential for application in gas storage, separation, sensing, catalysis, ferroelectric materials and nonlinear optics. Moreover, they show incomparable potential in enantioseparation and asymmetric catalysis, which are emergent technologies in modern chemical engineering. In this highlight, we summarize the classical ways to construct HMOFs based on the selection of ligands, as well as the practical techniques utilized. Moreover, the merits and demerits of each method are discussed along with the predictability of homochirality. Three effective elements to construct HMOFs, which work either alone or in combination.