H/D isotope effect on enantiomers: the case of Alanine

In the current description of any molecular system based on the Schrodinger equation with a Hamiltonian accounting only for the electromagnetic forces, the structural properties of enantiomers should be perfectly mirror symmetric. A recent study on D-Alanine claims to have revealed “dissimilarities in the structural properties of D-alanine compared with L-alanine”. The fact that such a study was conducted only on the deuterated specie of one enantiomer without taking into account the possibility of D/H exchange, give space to questions regarding the revealed dissimilarities. This proposal aims at investigating the H/D isotope effect on both enantiomers of alanine, using neutron diffraction (both powder and single-crystal) and in-situ Raman spectroscopy.