Electrochemical Method for the Determination of Enantiomeric Excess of Binol Using Redox-Active Boronic Acids as Chiral Sensors

A chiral ferrocene-based boronic acid interacts with (R)- and (S)-Binol to form two complexes that exhibit significantly different ferrocene-based electrode potentials. This difference in redox behavior can be exploited to demonstrate in principle how high levels of enantiomeric excess in a mixture of enantiomers can be quantified and read-out using an electrochemical method.