Abstract:
Optical activity of natural compounds is characteristic of our living world which is based on the asymmetry of the molecular set-up. It seems attractive to ask why nature perfers only one of the two possible enantiomers, e.g.the 1-amino acids and d-sugars. The discovery of the nonconseryation of parity in nuclear physics has .stimulated a search for related " asymmetry effects" in chemistry. In 1956 Lee and Yang suggested that if the principle of parity were invalid for weak interactions then p-decay electrons should be longtitudinally polairzed and γ-ray Bremsstrahlung photons resulting from them should in turn be circularly or elliptically polarized. A connection between this asymmetry of biomolecules was first suggested by Vester and developed by Ulbricht, who proposed a transfer of asymmetry from the elementary particle level to the molecular tevel via the mechanism. β-decay→longitudinally polarized electrons→ circularly polarized photons→chiral, optically active molecules. This suggestion constituted a novel hypothesis for the origin of optically active compounds in nature. In 1968 Garay irradiated d- and 1-tyrosine separately in alkaline aqueous ethanol using 0.36 mCi of dissolved 90SrCl2 as a β-ray source. After 18 months the ultraviolet adsorption spectra of the samples showed that the absorption bands of the d-tyrosine were more depleted than those of the 1-tyrosine. Garay interpreted this as indicating that the d-tyrosine had been preferentially decomposed in an oxidative degradation asymmetricall-y influenced by the 90Sr β-rays or their Bremsstrahlung. In 1976 Merwitz claimed that the 80Co γ-indu-ced decarboxylation of d-, 1-and dl-phenylalanine-l-14C selectively favors the d-isomer over the 1-isomer by a factor as high as 2.7 during the low-dose stages of the reaction.This astonishing result was interpreted as indicating that very small energy differences exist between enantiomers, which might become observable after amplifying or cascading processes were incorporatedThis paper aims to study the effect of γ~radiation, p-radiation and electric discharge in ethanol on the formation of the optical isomer of 2,3 butanediol. The dl-and meso-2,3-butanediol is separated and determined by gas chromato-graphy.The expected stereoselective synthesis of 2,3-butanediol cannot be detected . One must conclude that the energy difference between the enantiomers- d-and 1- or dl- and meso- form is too small to be detected.