"Click" post-synthetic modification of metal-organic frameworks with chiral functional adduct for heterogeneous asymmetric catalysis.

Two enantiomeric Zn-MOFs, having l- or d-proline chiral functionality, were achieved through in situ click reactions by modifying two opposite chiral adducts within the same pre-assembled achiral MOFs, respectively. Both of them exhibited remarkable catalytic activities in the relative asymmetric aldol reactions, and led to the formation of opposite enantiomorphs. The significant advantage of this approach not only includes the conversion of chemically and thermally robust MOFs into enantiomeric chiral material having catalytically active sites, but also involves the potential applications in asymmetric transformations with desirable chiralities of a special enantiomorph.