Strong Electrochemiluminescence Response Derived from Ionic Chiral Covalent Organic Frameworks for Enantioselective Discrimination of Amino Acid Enantiomers via an Electrostatic Attraction Effect

Porous chiral materials accompanied by electrochemiluminescence (ECL) activity are rarely reported for enantioselective discrimination because of the big challenges to integrate the stereogenic center and ECL-active unit in the backbone. In the present study, ionic chiral covalent organic frameworks (iCCOFs) consisting of the pyridinium unit as the ECL-active species were prepared by a facile strategy. We were amazed that such iCCOFs could display strong cathodic ECL responses. Meanwhile, the as-prepared ECL-active iCCOFs performed enantioselective ECL quenching toward amino acid enantiomers, attributed to the enhanced photoinduced electron transfer process derived from the formed complex between the iCCOFs and amino acids via an electrostatic attraction effect. The iCCOF with an (<i>S</i>)-configuration was prone to interact with l-amino acids, producing a lower ECL intensity. The maximum intensity ratio between the d- and l-enantiomers was 33.0. Finally, the enantiomeric compositions of the measured amino acids presented a good linear relation with the obtained ECL intensity, which was fit for the determination of samples with unknown enantiomeric purity. In brief, the obtained results convince us that this study advances a new generation of ECL-active iCCOFs and displays great potential in enantioselective sensing.