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Updated: Jul 20, 2025

Spatial Separation of Molecular Conformers and Clusters
Published on: January 9, 2014
Spin-Based Chiral Separations and the Importance of Molecule-Solvent Interactions
Yiyang Lu1, Tian Qiu2, Brian P Bloom1
1Chemistry Department, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, United States.
Abstract:
This work uses magneto-electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance methods to study the enantiospecific adsorption of chiral molecules onto a ferromagnetic substrate. The effects of solution conditions, pH, and solvent isotope composition indicate that the kinetics of the enantiomeric adsorption depend strongly on the charge state and geometry of the adsorbate, whereas no thermodynamic contributions to enantiospecificity are found. Density functional theory calculations reveal that an interplay between the adsorbate and solvent molecules is important for defining the observed enantiospecific preference with an applied magnetic field; however, it remains unclear if intermolecular vibrational couplings contribute to the phenomenon.
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