Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Synthesis and characterization of chiral mesoporous silica

Nature volume 429, pages 281–284 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Chirality is widely expressed in organic materials, perhaps most notably in biological molecules such as DNA, and in proteins, owing to the homochirality of their components (d-sugars and l-amino acids). But the occurrence of large-scale chiral pores in inorganic materials is rare1. Although some progress has been made in strategies to synthesize helical and chiral zeolite-like materials1,2,3, the synthesis of enantiomerically pure mesoporous materials is a challenge that remains unsolved4. Here we report the surfactant-templated synthesis of ordered chiral mesoporous silica, together with a general approach for the structural analysis of chiral mesoporous crystals by electron microscopy. The material that we have synthesized has a twisted hexagonal rod-like morphology, with diameter 130–180 nm and length 1–6 µm. Transmission electron microscopy combined with computer simulations confirm the presence of hexagonally ordered chiral channels of 2.2 nm diameter winding around the central axis of the rods. Our findings could lead to new uses for mesoporous silica and other chiral pore materials in, for example, catalysis and separation media, where both shape selectivity and enantioselectivity5 can be applied to the manufacturing of enantiomerically pure chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Schematic illustration of the two types of interaction between the head group of C14-l-AlaS, its free amino acid C14-l-AlaA and amino groups.
Figure 2: XRD pattern of calcined chiral mesoporous silica, indicating the hexagonal order.
Figure 3: SEM image and schematic drawings of a structural model of chiral mesoporous silica.
Figure 4: TEM images of chiral mesoporous silica.
Figure 5: Schematic drawing of chiral mesoporous silica, its TEM image and the computer-simulated TEM image.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Davis, M. E. New vistas in zeolite and molecular sieve catalysis. Acc. Chem. Res. 26, 111–115 (1993)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Gier, T. E., Bu, X., Feng, P. & Stucky, G. D. Synthesis and organization of zeolite-like materials with three-dimensional helical pores. Nature 395, 154–157 (1998)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Wang, Y., Yu, J., Guo, M. & Xu, R. [{Zn2(HPO4)4}{Co(dien)2}]·H3O: A zinc phosphate with multidirectional intersecting helical channels. Angew. Chem. Int. Edn Engl. 42, 4089–4092 (2003)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Davis, M. E. Ordered porous materials for emerging applications. Nature 417, 813–821 (2002)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Baiker, A. Chiral catalysis on solids. Curr. Opin. Solid State Mater. Sci. 3, 86–93 (1998)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Che, S. et al. A novel anionic surfactant templating route for synthesizing mesoporous silica with unique structure. Nature Mater. 2, 801–805 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Tracey, A. S. & Zhang, X. Investigation into the mechanism for generation of the helical axis in cholesteric lyotropic liquid crystals. J. Phys. Chem. 96, 3889–3894 (1992)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Acharya, D. P. et al. Phase behavior and effect of enantiomerism on potassium N-dodecanoyl alaninate/water/decanol system. J. Oleo. Sci. 52, 407–420 (2003)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Sakamoto, K. & Hatano, M. Formation of chiral aggregation of acylamino acid in solutions. Bull. Chem. Soc. Jpn 53, 339–343 (1980)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Iwahashi, M. et al. Solvent effect on chiral aggregate formation of acylamino acids. J. Oleo. Sci. 51, 705–713 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Shin, H. J., Ryoo, R., Liu, Z. & Terasaki, O. Template synthesis of asymmetrically mesostructured platinum networks. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 123, 1246–1247 (2001)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Tian, B. et al. Facile synthesis and characterization of novel mesoporous and mesorelief oxides with gyroidal structures. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 126, 865–875 (2004)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) of JST Corporation, and by the Swedish Research Council (VR). S.C. thanks the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for a postdoctoral fellowship to start this work at Yokohama National University.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Shunai Che

  2. Bussan Nanotech Research Institute, 2-1 Koyadai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-0074, Japan

    Zheng Liu

  3. Structural Chemistry, Arrhenius Laboratory, Stockholm University, S-10691, Stockholm, Sweden

    Zheng Liu, Tetsu Ohsuna & Osamu Terasaki

  4. AminoScience Laboratory, Ajinomoto Co., Inc., 1-1 Suzuki-cho, 210-8681, Kawasaki, Japan

    Kazutami Sakamoto

  5. CREST, JST, Division of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Yokohama National University, 79-5 Tokiwadai, 240-8501, Yokohama, Japan

    Takashi Tatsumi

Authors
  1. Shunai Che
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Zheng Liu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Tetsu Ohsuna
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Kazutami Sakamoto
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Osamu Terasaki
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Takashi Tatsumi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shunai Che.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Figure 1

Adsorption and desorption isotherms of nitrogen and pore size distribution of chiral mesoporous silica. (JPG 27 kb)

Supplementary Figure 2

The TEM images and schematic drawing of the chiral channels into which Co and Pt were inserted. (JPG 59 kb)

Supplementary Figure 3

CD spectra of synthesis gel of chiral mesoporous silica. (JPG 18 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Che, S., Liu, Z., Ohsuna, T. et al. Synthesis and characterization of chiral mesoporous silica. Nature 429, 281–284 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02529

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02529

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing