Synergetic Patterns of Chiral Fragments and Steric Confinement for the Separation of Chiral Pharmaceuticals

Chiral drug molecules play an important role in the treatment of diseases and public health; however, these substances are often difficult to be separated from nonchiral molecules in the chemical production process. Here, a chiral molecule, 3,5-dibromo-l-tyrosine, is adopted as the building monomer to cross-link with 1,3,5-tris(4-ethynylphenyl)benzene through the Sonogashira–Hagihara coupling reaction to obtain the chiral PAF solid, LNU-56. Because we have successfully introduced chiral amino acid groups into the pores with a diameter of 1.2 nm, the obtained adsorbent shows outstanding adsorption capability for ketoprofen drug, with a maximum capacity of 725.56 mg g–1, which is the highest adsorption capacity reported so far. Meanwhile, synergetic patterns of chiral fragments and steric confinement bring about the high selectivity for chiral pharmaceuticals in the presence of various achiral drugs, various interfering ions, or high concentration of NaCl. The advantages of constructing a chiral porous platform provide new perspectives on the development of PAF-based adsorbents and separation and purification of pharmaceuticals.