Spontenious chiral-inducton in a chiral nematic phase

Abstract

Using liquid crystals as media of chemical reactions is expected to enable highly-enantioselective-reaction.We focused on a chiral dopant 1 (Scheme1) . It is predicted that 1 thermally decomposes and recombines through retro-Diels-Alder and Diels-Alder reactions of anthracene and rod-like fumaryl ester. In a chiral nematic phase, it is expected that these reactions proceed with a favorable enantioselectivity due to the helical molecular alignment generated by 1. The purposes of this study are to pursue the behavior of 1 in liquid crystal phase and to realize spontenious chiral-induction. The mixture of 1 and host-LC was heated and the enantiomeric excess of 1 was monitered by HPLC.