School of Life and Environmental Sciences
Faculty of Science and Technology
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Participants in 2005 Professor Dainis Dakternieks
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A recent porous tin oxide
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One of the greatest challenges of modern chemistry is mimicry of biological
systems that carry out complex chemical reactions under mild physiological
conditions. Enzymes, for example, utilise host-guest chemistry whereby functionalised
host cavities are responsive to specific guest molecules. The ability of chemists
to match structure with function at the molecular level gives possibility to
creation of functional materials required to enable growth of technologies
reliant on specific molecular recognition.
Our research is focused on making materials that interact selectively with single
enantiomers of chiral molecules. Control over host-guest interactions will be
achieved by use of main group building block combinations to yield specifically
tailored molecular reaction sites. The field of nanoporous hybrid inorganic-organic
materials based on chiral ligands and main group elements remains largely unexplored.
The innovative use of main group chemistry offers a large variety of new means
to control the assembly of chiral porous materials. For instance, one or more
chiral groups may be attached directly at a main group element; main group elements
groups may be linked together by a rigid spacer to form part of the cavity architecture
prior to formation of the hybrid material.
This new host-guest chemistry is not only of fundamental value but also has value in applications such as chiral separations and enantioselective catalysis of fine chemicals, needed by biotechnology sectors including the pharmaceuticals industry. This research creates potential for Australian industry to capture value in the nanoporous materials market, projected to be US$1.6 billion by 2007.
