Chirality sensing of amines, diamines, amino acids, amino alcohols, and α-hydroxy acids with a single probe.

A stereodynamic probe for determination of the absolute configuration and enantiomeric composition of chiral amines, diamines, amino alcohols, amino acids, and α-hydroxy carboxylic acids is described. The chirality sensing is based on spontaneous asymmetric transformation of the first kind with stereolabile binaphtholate boron and zinc complexes. The substrate binding and chiral amplification processes yield a distinctive chiroptical sensor output at high wavelength that can be used for rapid and accurate ee detection of minute sample amounts.