Self-Assembled Metal-Coordination Nanohelices as Efficient and Robust Chiral Supramolecular Catalysts for Enantioselective Reactions.

The development of chiral nanostructures-based supramolecular catalysts with satisfied enantioselectivity remains a significantly more challenging task. Herein, the synthesis and self-assembly of various amino acid amphiphiles as chiral supramolecular catalysts after metal ion coordination is reported and systematically investigate their enantioselectivity in asymmetric Diels-Alder reactions. In particular, the self-assembly of l/d-phenylglycine-based amphiphiles (l/d-PhgC) and Cu(II) into chiral supramolecular catalysts in the methanol/water solution mixture is described, which features the interesting M/P nanohelices (diameter ≈8 nm) and mostly well-aligned M/P nanoribbons (NRs). The M/P supramolecular catalysts show both high but inverse enantioselectivity (>90% ee) in Diels-Alder reactions, while their monomeric counterparts display nearly racemic products. Analysis of the catalytic results suggests the outstanding enantioselectivities are closely related to the specific stereochemical microenvironment provided by the arrangement of the amphiphiles in the supramolecular assembly. Based on the experimental evidence of chirality transfer from supramolecular nanohelices to coordinated Cu(II) and substrate aza-chalcone and the molecular dynamics simulations, the enantioselective catalytic mechanisms are proposed. Moreover, the relationships between molecular structures of amino acid amphiphiles (the hydrophilic head group and hydrophobic alkyl chain length) in supramolecular catalysts and enantioselectivity in Diels-Alder reactions are elaborated.