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Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Vol.108, No.44, 9475-9478, 2004
Homogeneous chiral autocatalysis: A simple, purely stochastic kinetic model
A continuous-time, discrete-state stochastic approach was used to study a simple, chiral autocatalytic model that was composed of the following three reactions: A --> 0.5B(R) + 0.5B(S) (nu(1) = k(u)[A]), A + B-R --> 2B(R) (nu(2) = k(c)[A][B-R]), A + B-S --> 2B(S) (nu(3) = k(c)[A][B-S]). It is shown that the final distribution of enantiomers B-R and B-S is described by the one-parameter probability function Cx(delta)(1 -x)(delta), where x is the molar fraction of B-R, delta = 0.5/alpha - 1 (where alpha = k(c)/(k(u)N(A)V), N-A is Avogadro's constant, and V is the volume of the sample), and C = Gamma(1/alpha)/{Gamma(0.5/alpha)}(2) (where Gamma is the gamma function). Comparison with two published examples shows that the probability function introduced here gives a reasonable interpretation of the experimental results.