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A 2015 study predicted that an electric field could reverse the handedness of a self-assembled molecular helix—but it did not demonstrate the switch in an experiment. The result came from atomistic simulations of benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxamide (BTA) columns, and the authors proposed an experiment to test the prediction.
What the electric-field switch is supposed to change
BTA molecules can assemble through hydrogen bonds into one-dimensional columns. The molecules’ arrangement gives a column a net dipole, or macrodipole, along its stacking direction. The 2015 paper predicts that applying an external field opposite to that macrodipole can drive a rearrangement that reverses the column’s helical handedness—its chirality.
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This is a prediction about the organization of a molecular assembly, not a claim that an electric field changes the handedness of an isolated molecule. The primary paper, by Bejagam, Kulkarni, George and Balasubramanian, appeared in Chemical Communications 51 (2015), pages 16049–16052. Its abstract describes the reversal as a result of atomistic molecular dynamics simulations and says an experiment is proposed. Read the Royal Society of Chemistry paper.
How the simulated rearrangement could work
In the proposed setup, the field points against the column’s existing macrodipole. The model predicts that the field favors reorientation of the molecular dipoles. Because columns aligned in a liquid-crystalline phase cannot simply turn as a whole, the reported explanation instead involves local structural change: hydrogen bonds break, amide groups reorient, and hydrogen bonds form again in a configuration with the opposite helical handedness.
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That sequence is the study’s modeled mechanism, not an experimentally observed account of bonds switching in real time. A 2015 report in Chemistry World describes the proposed rearrangement and the constraint on whole-column rotation. Read the report by Elisabeth Ratcliffe.
What has—and has not—been demonstrated
| Question | What the cited sources establish |
|---|---|
| Was the BTA handedness reversal observed in an experiment? | No experimental demonstration is reported in the 2015 paper; it presents a simulation prediction and proposes an experiment. The Chemistry World report, dated 3 September 2015, says the team had begun work on experimental verification. That is historical context, not confirmation that the test succeeded. |
| Is later confirmation established here? | The sources cited here do not establish whether the specific predicted switching was subsequently confirmed. |
| Are applications established? | No. Enantioseparation, chiral amplification and changes in optical activity were discussed as possible implications, not demonstrated uses of the switch. |
The original article’s bibliographic record is also available through PubMed, PMID 26324610. The Royal Society of Chemistry published a research-news post about the work on 7 September 2015: “Electric switch makes helix change hands”.
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Why reversing chirality might matter
The 2015 report discussed several possibilities rather than tested applications. Coauthor Sundaram Balasubramanian said the stacks could potentially serve as chiral templates for enantioseparation, a process for separating mirror-image forms of molecules. He also described using the stacks as nuclei to encourage chiral amplification—enrichment of one handed form—from a fresh feed of achiral molecules.
Daan Frenkel, identified in the report as an expert on self-assembled structures at the University of Cambridge, noted a possible optical consequence: “The chirality, and hence the optical rotatory power, can be switched.” These are proposals about what controllable chirality might enable; the article does not show that the BTA stacks have been used for separation, amplification or optical switching in practice.
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The practical takeaway
The striking claim is that an electric field may switch the handedness of a molecular column, not that this has already been achieved in a laboratory. For this BTA system, the evidence described in the cited sources is a computational prediction with a proposed experimental test; the proposed hydrogen-bond rearrangement and any resulting applications should be understood in that context.
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