Chiral assembled materials have received increasing attention in many research areas as new functional composite materials, especially focusing on their potential application in enantiomeric resolution. In this paper, the formation mechanisms of chiral assembled materials are firstly discussed from the origin of chirality, which include four main ways: chiral induction, chiral amplification, chiral transfer and chiral transcription. The formation of chiral porous metal-organic frameworks and nanocages are based on the mechanisms of chiral induction and chiral transfer, while chiral gels are formed on the basis of chiral amplification mechanism. Chiral transcription mechanism is mainly utilized to construct chiral porous inorganic materials and helical nanostructures. Secondly, stereoselective recognition of chiral assembled materials towards optical enantiomers, including metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), chiral gels, nanocages, and their applications on enantioselective separation are reviewed. Thirdly, the chiral self-assembly and stereoselective recognition of natural DNAs, as well as the applications of DNA helical structures in the fields of chiral plasmon materials and asymmetric catalysts are introduced. Finally, the unique advantages of metal-organic frameworks, chiral gels, nanocages and DNA are summerized, and the application prospects of DNAs in chiral separation are outlooked. Contents
1 Introduction
2 Formation mechanisms of chiral assembled materials
2.1 Chiral induction
2.2 Chiral amplification
2.3 Chiral transfer
2.4 Chiral transcription
3 Application of chiral assembled materials in enantioselective recognition
3.1 Metal-organic frameworks(MOFs)
3.2 Chiral gels
3.3 Nanocages
4 Application of natural DNAs in chiral separation
4.1 Chiral assembly
4.2 Enantioseparation
5 Conclusion and outlook