Chiral helical polymer materials derived from achiral monomers and their chiral applications

Abstract

Chiral helical polymer materials (CHPMs) have attracted extensive attention due to their intriguing chiroptical properties and application potential. So far remarkable progress has been achieved in this research subject. CHPMs can be directly constructed from chiral monomers. This approach, however, shows some disadvantages because of the limited variety and number of easily available chiral monomers. To overcome the limitations, many powerful methodologies have been established to prepare CHPMs starting from achiral monomers. This article is a review on the preparation and applications of CHPMs derived from achiral monomers, with emphasis on the CHPMs constructed using chiral helical polyacetylenes. The methods for preparing CHPMs under discussion are classified into two major categories. The first one is helix-sense-selective polymerizations (HSSPs) of achiral monomers and the second one is chiral post-induction of racemic helical polymers. In both cases, the polymers constructing CHPMs adopt one predominant helicity. The CHPMs demonstrate significant application potential in various fields including asymmetric catalysis, chiral separation, chiral detection, enantioselectively controlled release, and the construction of circularly polarized luminescence materials. This review article might promote further progress of CHPMs and their applications in chirality-related fields.