Homochirality as a Consequence of Thermodynamic Equilibrium?

✍ Scribed by Joaquim Crusats; Sabino Veintemillas-Verdaguer; Josep M. Ribó

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 303 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0947-6539
• DOI: 10.1002/chem.200600580

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Recent results on the crystallisation/dissolution equilibrium of enantiomorphic crystals of NaClO~3~ lead to the conclusion that liquid‐phase systems composed of achiral or fast racemising compounds yielding enantiomorphic solid phases (racemic conglomerates) can derive spontaneously to a single homochiral solid phase. This is a thermodynamically driven total resolution, which can only occur when the system is so perturbed that chiral recognition between the species of the system becomes feasible.