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“If Pigs Could Fly” Chemistry: A Tutorial on the Principle of Microscopic Reversibility
Author(s) -
Blackmond Donna G.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.200804566
Subject(s) - autocatalysis , homochirality , autocatalytic reaction , closed system (control theory) , chemistry , enantiomer , thermodynamics , statistical physics , physics , organic chemistry , catalysis
Through a glass darkly : Several recent autocatalytic reaction models for the origin of homochirality have suggested ways in which one enantiomer of the product might be reconverted into the other by a recycling reaction in a closed system. These models are revealed to violate the principle of microscopic reversibility, a powerful tool for assessing the plausibility of proposed reaction networks even at far‐from‐equilibrium conditions.