Asymmetric Autocatalysis as an Efficient Link Between the Origin of Homochirality and Highly Enantioenriched Compounds

Multi‐Length Scale Communication Effects in Catalysis: Thinking Big and Acting Small

“…10 À 10 % ee) [77] to almost complete enantiomeric purity in a stochastic way. [79] A variety of chiral chemical selectors have been successfully employed to control the absolute configuration of the products in the Soai reaction, [80,81] and the minimal energy difference between product enantiomers required to break symmetry with a deterministic chiral bias for the Soai reaction has been estimated to lie between 1.5×10 À 7 and 1.5×10 À 8 kJ/ mol, [82] much higher (at least by five orders of magnitude) than the "natural" energy difference due to the asymmetry of the weak nuclear force. It is therefore not surprising that up to now chiral physical fields (Cf.…”

“…mechanical shear flows) have not been able to induce any permanent chiral bias in this reaction. [81] Beyond the Soai reaction, SMSB for reactions in solution has only been described for the initial stages of the selfcatalyzed aldol addition of acetone to p-nitrobenzaldehyde (leading to low yields and enantiomeric purities), [83] and is probably due to a rather complex reaction network in which the reversible formation of a bis(aldol) adduct acting as an indirect enantioselective catalyst [84] plays a key role.…”