Open system approaches in deterministic models of the emergence of homochirality

✍ Scribed by Gábor Lente

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 533 KB
• Volume: 22
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0899-0042
• DOI: 10.1002/chir.20853

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Three different general strategies are proposed for kinetic models of the emergence of homochirality in open systems: flow‐through reactors, photochemical energy input, and chemical energy input from a sacrificial reagent. Using a simple, second‐order chiral autocatalytic core model, it is shown that all these scenarios lead to similar mathematical description despite the fundamentally different chemical background and practically complete homochirality is reached in all of these cases. It is also argued that the photochemical energy input scenario might not be compatible with a sunlight‐driven natural process. Chirality, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.