Description
Two populations of chiral crystals of "left" and "right"
hand cannot coexist in solution: one of the chiral
populations disappears in an irreversible autocatalytic
process that nurtures the other one. Final and complete
chiral purity seems to be an inexorable fate in our systems
in the course of the common process of growth-dissolution.
This unexpected chiral symmetry breaking can be explained by
the feedback between the thermodynamic control of
dissolution and the kinetics of the growth process near
equilibrium. We establish this “thermodynamic-kinetic
feedback near equilibrium” as a new mechanism to achieve
complete chiral purity in solid state from a previously
solid racemic medium. This mechanism can operate in
solutions of chiral biomolecules and could have played a key
role in the origin of biochirality
