Summary
The paper presents some experiments which were aimed at the demonstration of enrichment of enantiomer substances by precipitation from saturated racemic solutions. As a working hypothesis we searched for a possible very small “asymmetry effect” that might by observable during precipitation if the solubilities of enantiomer components were affected. Crystallization of a small fraction out of a bulk of racemate would lead to an amplification of an elementary effect which by itself would have escaped any direct experimental verification. We chose DL-asparagine-monohydrate in aqueous solution as the system to be investigated. — Of particular interest is the result that below 7.5 °C the yield of D-asparagine seems to exceed that of L-asparagine in the precipitate, while above 8 °C the opposite is true. This qualitative result is confirmed by extrapolation of experimental data gained from precipitation of non-racemic asparagine solutions — at least for a crystallization temperature of 0 °C.
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Thiemann, W. Disproportionation of enantiomers by precipitation. J Mol Evol 4, 85–97 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01732774
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01732774