Research Projects

Rationality of the Research: To get the desired enantiomer, two competing approaches can be engaged “chiral approach” and the “racemic approach”. Among these two techniques the racemic approach is relatively easy. From the literature reports it can be noticed that most of the reports they discuss the chiral resolution by racemic approach either by chromatographic techniques or enantioselective crystallization, is in milligram scale. Therefore, for practical application purpose, we need some systems which can be used to separate the enantiomers in bulk. Scientific Objectives: Here we propose to synthesize a series of chiral helical polymers bearing various functional groups such as amides, esters, urea etc. These functionalized, responsive chiral helical polymers will be used for resolution of various commercially important chiral compounds by two different techniques namely chiral chromatography (chiral helical polymer based Chiral Stationary Phases (CSPs)) and enantioselective crystallization. The CD sensitive nature of these chiral helical polymers to the external additives will be utilized for chiral recognition/discrimination and to predict the configuration of the chiral centre. Scientific rationality behind the designed polymeric material: The scientific rationality behind the design of our new chiral polymers is as follows: The tunable nature of chiral poly(ionic liquid) brings several advantage including functionalization, and solubility switch from aqueous to organic and vice versa. Other functional groups along with point chirality (R or S) and the structural chirality or helicity (Right hand or Left hand) could discriminate the two enantiomers which is very key in enantiomer separation either by chromatography or selective crystallization. At the same time, syntheses of these chiral polymers in simple, straight forward and easy to scale-up. Hypothesis to be tested: Hypothesis-1: Right handed helical polymer and left handed helical polymers interact with two enantiomers of a chiral compound differently: This hypothesis will be tested as follows. First various chiral helical polymers will be treated with different chiral pure compounds and their response will be noted in CD. Here both type of enantiopure compounds will be employed to note their response in CD analysis. A successful testing of this hypothesis gives a way towards chiral recognition/discrimination and predicting the chiral configuration Hypothesis-2: Chiral helical polymer assisted Enantioselective Crystallization in both Organic and Aqueous medium: Hypothesis-1 is basis for this second hypothesis. This hypothesis will be tested by using various soluble chiral helical polymers towards the selective crystallization of a number of racemates. Here we test how the change in the helical nature of the chiral polymer is effecting the type of enantiomer that it crystallizes. Hypothesis-3: Other functional groups along with point chirality (R or S) and the structural chirality or helicity (Right hand or Left hand) could discriminate the two enantiomers which is very key in enantiomer separation: First chiral helical polymers will be used to prepare coated type CSPs and immobilized type CSPs. These CSPs will be employed for the resolution of various racemates by column chromatography. A successful test of this hypothesis means Objective-3 is achieved. Estimated Applications: • It provides a simply, cost effective and scalable synthesis of chiral helical polymers. These chiral helical polymers based separation phase material, HPLC columns are expected to show good separation ability and effective in bulk separation of racemates, at least up to a few grams. • It provide simple method for the enantioselective crystallization in either organic or aqueous medium • Chiral recognition and its configuration of an unknown chiral compound can be predicted using CD responsive chiral helical polymers.