Explanation
for
the emergence of a single chiral solid state during attrition-enhanced
Ostwald ripening: Survival of the fittest
Noorduin WL (Noorduin, Wim L.),
Meekes H (Meekes, Hugo), Bode AAC
(Bode, Arno A. C.), van Enckevort WJP (van Enckevort, Willem J. P.),
Kaptein B (Kaptein, Bernard), Kellogg RM (Kellogg, Richard M.), Vlieg E
(Vlieg, Elias)
CRYSTAL GROWTH &
DESIGN Volume:
8 Issue: 5 Pages: 1675-1681
Abstract:
The overabundant occurrence
of single-handed chiral molecules
in living systems has inspired scientists for well more than a century.
A route to the evolution of a single chiral solid phase, using abrasive
grinding of the crystals in contact with a saturated solution, has been
demonstrated for the achiral compound NaClO31 crystallizing in a chiral
space group and, recently, for an intrinsically chiral amino acid
derivative.(2) In order to obtain insight in the complex processes
involved in these experiments, we developed a computer model that is
based only on attrition and Ostwald ripening. We find that, besides the
relative rates of attrition and Ostwald ripening, the racemization
efficiency in the solution is an essential parameter in the
deracemization process. For high efficiency the evolution to single
chirality is stochastic, whereas for lower values the process becomes
increasingly deterministic and the handedness of the single chiral
solid end state is readily controllable. The results show excellent
agreement with experimental data and allow a further optimization of
this promising deracemization technique.