Spontaneous Mirror‐Symmetry Breaking Destabilizes Racemates: A Route to Homochirality and Reversed Chemical Selectivity

Several models and experiments yielding to spontaneous mirror‐symmetry breaking (SMSB) have been revisited. It is concluded that all show first‐order autocatalytic dynamics for the emergence of an enantiomeric excesses ( ee ). However, first‐order autocatalysis is by itself unable to lead to SMSB. Therefore, the emergence of scalemic nonequilibrium stationary state (NESS) is due to racemate destabilization through the coupling of autocatalysis with other enantioselective reactions. In contrast with the nonlinear effects and kinetic control in asymmetric synthesis SMSB appears as the signature of a bifurcation scenario leading to scalemic NESSs. Stoichiometric network analysis points to the potential interest of these autocatalytic networks to interpret the changes in the chemical selectivity between nonenantiomeric competitive replicators in far‐from‐equilibrium conditions.