Spin catalysis as a nuclear spin selective process

Spin catalysis was shown by detailed inspection of the radical recombination in spin triads to be an efficient mechanism for enhancing nuclear spin selectivity and isotope fractionation. The key role belongs to a combined action of the hyperfine coupling, which induces Q-D' transitions in spin triads, and the following spin catalytic depopulation of D' states into the reactive D states. The combined effect is a dominating leakage of magnetic nuclei into the reaction products. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.