From Ostwald Ripening to Single Chirality

A century ago Wilhelm Ostwald received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Although Ostwald was never significantly involved with the phenomenon of chirality, one of his discoveries, Ostwald ripening, is thought to be involved in a recently discovered method in which grinding-induced attrition is used to transform racemic conglomerates virtually quantitatively into a single enantiomer. In this Minireview the basic concepts developed by Ostwald will be introduced, followed by a summary of the current status of grinding-induced asymmetric transformations. We will see how close Ostwald himself came to discovering this technique.