Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-29-2018

Publication Title

Inorganics

Volume

6

Issue Number

3

DOI

10.3390/inorganics6030087

Keywords

circularly polarized luminescence, chirality transfer, hydrophobic interactions, D3 lanthanide(III) complexes, chiral amino acid, solvent packing

Disciplines

Chemistry | Inorganic Chemistry

Abstract

The Pfeiffer effect is observed when an optically active compound such as an amino acid is introduced to a solution containing a labile racemic metal complex, and an equilibrium shift is obtained. The “perturbation” results in an excess of one enantiomer over the other. The shift is a result of a preferential outer sphere interaction between the introduced chiral species and one enantiomeric form (Λ or ∆) of a labile metal complex. Speculations regarding the mechanism of the Pfeiffer effect have attributed observations to a singular factor such as pH, solvent polarity, or numerous other intermolecular interactions. Through the use of the lanthanide(III) complexes [Tb(DPA)3]3− and [Eu(DPA)3]3− (where DPA = 2,6-pyridinedicarboxylate) and the amino acids l-serine and l-proline; it is becoming clear that the mechanism is not so simply described as per the preliminary findings that are discussed in this study. It appears that the true mechanism is far more complicated than the attribute just a singular factor. This work attempts to shine light on the fact that understanding the behavior of the solvent environment may hypothetically be the key to offering a more detailed description of the mechanism.

Comments

This article was published by MDPI and appeared in Inorganics, volume 6, issue 3, 2018. © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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