Explosive enantiospecific decomposition of aspartic acid on Cu surfaces.

Aspartic acid adsorbed on Cu surfaces is doubly deprotonated. On chiral Cu(643)R&S its enantiomers undergo enantiospecific decomposition via an autocatalytic explosion. Once initiated, the decomposition mechanism proceeds via sequential cleavage of the C3-C4 and C1-C2 bonds each yielding CO2, followed by conversion of the remaining species into N[triple bond, length as m-dash]CCH3.