Axial symmetry not applicable on 2d boundaries comsol 5.3
All these methods are time consuming and they do not lend themselves to a priori predictions of performance for newly synthesized molecules. Current separation methods typically rely on interactions with various chiral selectors, for example, chiral chromatography or recrystallization and related Viedma ripening 5, 6, while determination of absolute configuration relies on X-ray crystallography and on chiroptical spectroscpy 7, which encompasses a range of spectroscopic techniques, including vibrational circular dichroism 8. Separation and analysis of chiral molecules also plays an important role in the pharmaceutical industry 4. These mechanisms mostly lead to very small enantiomeric excess (ee) and thus require additional amplification to reach an enantiopure state. A variety of mechanisms have been proposed to explain symmetry-breaking interactions and the origins of enantiomeric homogeneity in biological systems, such as circularly polarized light 2, gravitational fields and vortex motion, parity violation, time-dependent optical and magnetic fields or photochemistry 3.
The relevance of chirality in Nature is well established 1. We expect our results to have an impact on multiple applications in drug discovery, analytical and chiral chemistry, including determination of absolute configuration, as well as in influencing the understanding of artificial and natural molecular systems where rotational motion of the molecules is involved. We demonstrate >80% enrichment level of counterpart enantiomers in solution without using chiral selectors or circularly polarized light. We introduce a new molecular parameter called hydrodynamic chirality to characterize the coupling of rotational motion of a chiral molecule into its translational motion and quantify the direction and velocity of such motion. Here we show that when exposed to a rotating electric field, the left- and right-handed chiral molecules rotate with the field and act as microscopic propellers moreover, owing to their opposite handedness, they propel along the axis of field rotation in opposite directions. Enantiomers share nearly identical physical properties but have different chiral geometries, making their identification and separation difficult.