Light - driven deracemization enabled by excited - state electron transfer Article Swipe

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Electron transfer Enantiomer Catalysis Excited state Hydrogen atom Chemistry Urea Photochemistry Proton Electron Chemical physics Atomic physics Nanotechnology Materials science Physics Stereochemistry Organic chemistry Group (periodic table) Quantum mechanics

Nick Y. Shin , Jonathan M. Ryss , Xin Zhang , Scott J. Miller , Robert R. Knowles ·

YOU? · · 2019 · Open Access · · DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aay2204 · OA: W2981092869

Charging through the looking glass Asymmetric catalysis is a commonly applied technique to prepare just one of two mirror-image products in a chemical reaction. But what if you already have the compound you want, stuck in a mixture of left- and right-handed enantiomers? Shin et al. now show that light-induced electron transfer can trigger a favorable succession of proton and hydrogen-atom transfer steps, both of which are susceptible to biasing by catalysts, to preferentially convert a mixture of cyclic urea enantiomers into just one (see the Perspective by Wendlandt). Science , this issue p. 364 ; see also p. 304