Chiral Transport: Enantiomer Separation in Microflows

只有手性不同的分子，即所谓的对映体，往往具有不同的性质，特别是在生物功能方面。例如，两种对映体的气味可能会形成强烈的反差。此外，糖、氨基酸和DNA等生命物质的重要分子构件是手性分子，人体只能使用右手糖和左手氨基酸。因此，对映体的分离在分子生物学中具有重要意义，被誉为有机化学的圣杯。在这个项目中，我们提出了一种新的分离技术，该技术基于对映体在具有空间可变涡度的流动中的不同输运性质。所提出的机制类似于漂移棘轮，它根据悬浮在流动中的颗粒的大小将其分离。要从理论上详细理解这种新的手性分离机理，需要对流体流动和手性分子运动之间的相互作用进行广泛的计算机模拟。由于它们的大小，分子的热运动也必须考虑在内。我们预计，这些波动实际上可以用来改善分离。

Molecules that only differ by their chirality, so called enantiomers, often possess different properties in particular with respect to their biological function. For example, the smell may strongly contrast for two enantiomers. Moreover, important molecular building blocks of living matter like sugars, amino acids and DNA are chiral molecules and the human body can only use right-handed sugars and left-handed amino acids. For all these reasons the separation of enantiomers is of great importance in molecular biology and belongs to the Holy Grail of organic chemistry. In this project we suggest a new separation technique that is based on the different transport properties of enantiomers in a flow with spatially variable vorticity. The proposed mechanism is akin to that of a drift ratchet which separates particles suspended in a flow according to their size. The detailed theoretical understanding of this novel chiral separation mechanism will require extensive computer simulations of the mutual interactions between fluid flows and the motions of chiral molecules. Because of their size the thermal, uctuating motion of the molecules must also be taken into account. We expect that these fluctuations can actually be utilized to improve the separation.