Self-Assembled Chiral Nanostructures as Scaffolds for Asymmetric Reactions.

The asymmetric reaction is one of the most important reactions in organic synthesis. While a large number of efficient molecular catalysts have been developed and applied, recently, supramolecular and nanostructured catalysts have been attracting interest. In this Minireview, we focus on self-assembled chiral nanostructures and review their possibility and feasibility as enantioselective catalysts. The design concept and the requirement of the chiral scaffold as the catalysts are discussed. Based on the chirality and catalytic performance of the building molecules and the supramolecular nanostructures, the nanocatalyst is divided into chiral nanostructure driven (CND) and chiral nanostructure enhanced (CNE) enantioselective catalysts. Then, several typical self-assembled chiral nanostructures such as nanocages, nanotubes, nanorods, micelles and vesicles are selected as the chiral scaffold and their catalytic behaviors for the asymmetric reactions were demonstrated. Finally, the future developments of the field are also discussed.