optical isomerism
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what is a chiral molecule?
a molecule with no plane of symmetry
what is a chiral carbon?
a carbon atom with four different atoms or groups attached if a molecule has a chiral carbon it will be chiral and will have optical isomers
what do chiral molecules have?
non-superimposable mirror image
chiral molecules exist in different forms called enantiomers or optical isomers, what do these do?
rotate plane polarised light in opposite directions
what is a racemic mixture and what does it do?
a 50:50 mixture of each enantiomer racemic mixtures have no effect on plane polarised light
what does it mean if objects are superimposable on each other?
if they can perfectly overlap with each other if they were in the same place NOTE: you are allowed to twist and rotate the molecule, but not break any bonds
how do we draw a 3D representation?
bonds tend to be drawn at the correct angle a wedge represents a bond coming towards you and a hash represents a bond going away from you
what is plane polarised light?
normal light vibrates in all directions- some up and some down if we pass it through a polarising filter, we can filter out all the light except that going up and down, it is then known as plane polarised light
what can we say about the properties of enantiomers?
have very similar physical and chemical properties- many reactions lead to the formation of racemic mixtures
give example of a chiral molecule that has no chiral carbons?
DNA does not contain carbon atoms but the helix itself is chiral (there is no plane of symmetry)