chirality

• Form of stereoisomerism - molecules with same structural formula but different spatial arrangements of atoms/groups
• Occurs when organic molecules have a chiral centre - C atom with 4 different atoms/groups atoms attached
• Isomers are NON-SUPERIMPOSABLE (can't be placed on top of each other) mirror images of each other
• optical isomers are also referred to as enantiomers
• For each chiral centre there are 2 possible isomers
• Total number of isomers = 2 to the power of the number of chiral centres

  • e.g. 1 chiral centre = 2 isomers (2 to the power of 1)
  • 2 chiral centres = 4 isomers (2 squared)
  • 5 chiral centre = 32 isomers (2 to the power of 5)
• a type of stereoisomerism is optical isomerism
• optical isomers are found in molecules that contain a chiral centre