Possible applications of chiral dendrimers

The following sections address the various types (A-E in Fig. 4.61) of chiral dendrimers. Individual publications which have shed light on the relation between the molecular chirality of the dendritic building blocks and the macroscopic chirality of the molecules as well as applications-relevant properties of chiral dendrimers are presented. 

Dendrimers with chiral core and achiral branching scaffold 

1 Chiroptical studies on dendrimers with chiral cores 

The first dendrimers with chiral cores for studies on the influence of the stereo-genic centres of a core unit on the chiroptical properties of the overall molecule were presented by Seebach s group [18]. These workers first synthesised dendrimers based on a chiral tris(hydroxymethyl)methane core unit. To these were attached zeroth- to second-generation Frechet dendrons, either directly or separated from the core by an aliphatic (n-propyl) or an aromatic spacer (p-xylylene) (Fig. 4.62). Remarkably, the dendrimers with aliphatic spacer showed no significant optical activity. This loss of chiral information was attributed to a dilution effecf, resulting from linkage of the achiral dendron to the chiral core unit, 

Overall, studies on poly(benzyl ether) dendrimers with various chiral core units show that the influence of the achiral dendrimer scaffold on the chiropti-cal properties of the core unit depend primarily upon the origin of their chirality. 

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