Efficient chiral separation using electrospun cellulosic membranes – ChiralCell

Many compounds of biological interest such as amino acids and drugs have chiral structures on which rely their physiological properties. Hence, chiral separation is crucial and resolution of racemates by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) equipped with polysaccharides-based chiral columns has been developed. Despite the impressive progress of the chiral HPLC, molecular level understanding of the phenomena at the origin of enantioseparation are lagging behind and thus, technologies suitable for large-scale separation have never been developed yet. This project ambitiously challenges both elucidation of the mechanism and development of a new technology for large-scale chiral separation by combining well-established theoretical and experimental analyses for the chiral separation via an innovative approach based on electrospun nanofibrous membranes made of various polysaccharides. This will enable, for the first time, large scale chiral separation based on membrane technology.