Theory of Conglomerate Crystallization in the Presence of Chiral Impurities

In the presence of an appropriate chiral impurity, the enantiomers of compounds that crystallize as conglomerates crystallize at different rates. During this process, the optical activity of the solution and the solid phase increases and then falls to zero. This transient optical activity happens on a time scale of about 15 min. In this paper, we present a general theoretical approach to describe this process. Our formulation is founded on basic theories of nucleation, crystal growth, and Langmuir adsorption. A computer code based on this theory is capable of describing both the time evolution of a single run of crystallization and the stochastic behavior observed in many crystallization runs; it also gives the crystal size distribution.