Final Technical Report for DOE Grant DE-FG02-03ER15473 “Molecular Level Design of Heterogeneous Chiral Catalysis”

The production of enantiomerically pure chiral compounds is of great importance in the pharmaceutical industry. Although processes involving chiral catalysis and separations involving solid surfaces are known, the molecular-scale details of these processes are not well understood. This lack of understanding strongly limits the development of new chiral processes. Our collaborative research effort examines several intertwined aspects of chirality and enantioselectivity at catalytically active metal surfaces. At Carnegie Mellon, our efforts focus on the development of chirally imprinted metal powders as materials for chiral columns and the experimental and theoretical study of small chiral molecules adsorbed on well-characterized metal surfaces, both achiral and chiral. These efforts are being performed in close collaboration with our team members at the University of California Riverside and the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee