Collaborative Research: Harnessing the chirality matching principle for enhanced catalytic reactivity

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With the support of the Chemical Catalysis program in the Division of Chemistry, Harbin Mao and Hao Shen of Kent State University (KSU) and Wei-Shun Chang of the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth (UMassD), are studying how chirality (non-superimposable mirror configurations) matching can be used to enhance catalyst design and performance. Developing catalysts with better efficiency to carry out a chemical reaction would be consequential for a variety of fields including synthetic chemistry, materials science, and biomedical science. In the proposed research project, chirality matching between the gold core and the coating material (i.e., DNA) will be examined in an effort to optimize the catalytic efficiency of such systems. This research project aims to synergize expertise in DNA biomaterials with expertise in force-based single-molecule biophysics (Mao) and in single-molecule fluorescence and in catalysis (Shen), and in single particle spectroscopy and microscopy (Chang). This interdisciplinary science is expected to provide a rich learning environment for a diverse research team that includes members of underrepresented groups across its high-school, college, and graduate student members. These students will closely interact with each other via joint research meetings as well as frequent visits between KSU and UMassD.In this research project, this highly collaborative team proposes that charge transfer exists within a catalyst during a catalytic reaction, which could be modulated by matching the chiral components in the catalyst. A modular artificial enzyme, “coronazyme”, has been developed as the platform to test the hypothesis. This coronazyme consists of a gold nanoparticle as a core and DNA as a coating material, with each component assuming left-handed or right-handed chirality. The matching of the chirality in combination with external circularly polarized light excitation could yield novel catalysts with superior performances to their predecessors. The research project aims to establish this chirality matching principle, which, if successful, can likely be extended to the fields beyond catalysis, including, but not limited to, the molecular recognition employed in materials development and sensing applications.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.