Chiral separation in microflows

Abstract

Molecules that only differ by their chirality, so called enantiomers, often possess different properties with respect to their biological function. Therefore, the separation of enantiomers presents a prominent challenge in molecular biology and belongs to the ``Holy Grail'' of organic chemistry. We suggest a new separation technique for chiral molecules that is based on the transport properties in a microfluidic flow with spatially variable vorticity. Because of their size the thermal fluctuating motion of the molecules must be taken into account. These fluctuations play a decisive role in the proposed separation mechanism.