Recent progress of membrane technology for chiral separation: A comprehensive review

More than half of the world's medicines are chiral compounds, and each enantiomer exhibits distinct biological activities. Therefore, the development of efficient enantiomer separation methods is of great importance for human health and safety. However, chiral separation is challenging and complex due to the remarkably identical physical and chemical properties of the two enantiomers. Currently, membrane separation technique has been widely applied in chiral separation because of its advantages of simplicity and efficiency, low energy consumption, easy scale-up, and continuous production. Therefore, this paper systematically presents the current research progress of chiral separation membranes in the past decade from the chiral mechanism, summarizes the application of simulation calculation in chiral separation membranes, and emphasizes the importance of enantiomeric desorption. Finally, we analyze the challenges and prospects of chiral membranes, and hope to promote the development of chiral membrane technology.