Research

The physical and chemical properties of crystalline solids are as critically dependent upon the distribution of molecular components within the crystal lattice as the properties of its individual molecular components has provided impetus for research into crystal engineering. Crystal engineering have reached a level of maturity with respect to design principles that are effective across a diverse range of MBBs. Our current design principles include the use of topology to classify and generate specific structures, generation of chirality from achiral MBBs and control of pore size through interpenetration.

Chirality is an essential feature of life and plays a vital role in various chemical and biological processes. Chirality in the solid-state manifests itself in applications such as enantioselective separation, asymmetric catalysis and nonlinear optical behavior. Chiral metal-organic materials (CMOMs) with extra large surface area can combine chirality and nanoscale porosity in a single material. Our approach to synthesis of CMOMs is the use of chiral additives that induce achiral MBBs to generate homochiral MOMs.

Resolution of enantiomers is important in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, flavorings and fragrances, mainly because of their marked differences in pharmacology, toxicology, metabolism etc. As chiral adsorbents, chiral MOMs (CMOMs) combine homochirality and porosity, and, if the pore size is a good match for the targeted guest, they can provide a well-defined stereospecific environment for the discrimination and separation of enantiomers. We aim to design novel CMOMs as chiral stationary phase for separations.

Biomarkers play a vital role in disease detection and treatment follow-up. Diseases and cancers in the early stage are typically treated with the greatest probability of success. However, due to various technical difficulties in current technologies for the detection of biomarkers, the potential of biomarkers is not explored completely. Therefore, our aim to develop MOF-based sensors, which can enable the accurate detection of prostate cancer at an early stage with simple, experimental protocols are highly inevitable.

Molecular magnetism is the effort of chemists, physicists, and materials scientists to understand and find utility in the magnetic properties of discrete molecular species. Magnetic materials function as nanoscopic classical magnets, except that their behavior is governed by the quantum spin of the electrons of a single molecule. Such single-molecule and single-chain magnets approach the ultimate size limit for spin-based devices and may find uses in data storage, quantum computation and spintronic devices.