Emergence of a single solid chiral state from a nearly racemic amino acid derivative

The evolution of a single chiral solid state is reported for an amino acid derivative starting from a nearly racemic mixture of solid left- and right-handed crystals. Attrition-enhanced dissolution and recrystallization processes based on solubility considerations of the Gibbs-Thomson rule, coupled with solution-phase racemization, drive this near-equilibrium system inexorably to single chirality in the solid phase.