Abstract
Intermolecular London dispersion forces, responsible for van der Waals
(vdW) interactions, are due to induced-electric dipole induced-electric dipole
interaction. They can be affected by molecular chirality in an unexpected
way that is connected to the Chiral-Induced Spin Selectivity (CISS) effect,
which provides a physical mechanism for the onset of an effective vdW
interaction that depends on the relative orientation of the two enantiomers
associated to a chiral molecule. This argument provides a path for chiral
discrimination, which plays a fundamental role in molecular recognition of
bio-molecules. In this contribution, we will explicitly describe a simple model
to explore the influence of the CISS effect in vdW forces, and the way this
leads to molecular chiral discrimination.