Chiral metal oxide nanostructures

Over last 3 years there were interesting new developments in the area of chiral metal oxide based nanostructures. 

Chiral nematic mesoporous films of Eu doped Zr02 have been produced via a hard-templating approach using nanoctystalline cellulose-templated silica (Fig. 11). It was found that these chiral nematic nanostructures are capable of modulating the spontaneous emission of the Eu ions. The emission lines of the Eu at 596 nm, 613 and 625 nm were significantly suppressed, and an increase in the luminescence lifetime is observed. It was suggested that these new chiral luminescent nanomaterials could find potential applications in sensing and new optical nanodevices. 

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Another area which was initiated during last year is development of chiral metal oxide based nanomaterials such as chiral Ti02 nanofibres and chiral ZrOj nanotubes. It is anticipated that these chiral metal oxide nanostructures will find very important applications as asymmetric catalysts. In addition the progress in the fabrication of mesoporous silica based chiral nanostructures e.g. helical architectures) should open new opportunities in chiral separation of enantiomeric compounds. 

Chiral gelators based on the trflns-l,2-diaminocyclohexane unit were successfully used as templates for the preparation of silica or transition metal oxide nanostructures hehcal fibers or tubes [24-26]. 

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