CHEM1004 Study Guide - Final Guide: Oxyanion, Electrophile, Substituent

• School: UWA
• Department: Chemistry
• Course: CHEM1004
• Professor: Elizabeth Quail

Document Summary

Halide (where x = f, cl, br, i) Stereoisomers of biological compounds have the same connectivity of atoms, but a different arrangement in space. Stereoisomers can be classified into two categories: enantiomers, a non super-imposable mirror image relationship, and, diastereomers, all other stereoisomers. Enantiomers are chiral, meaning that they are molecules with non-superimposable mirror images. The most commonly encountered chiral compounds have a tetrahedral carbon with four different substituents attached to it. Enantiomers are chemically identical and have identical properties and for a given pair of enantiomers, both rotate the plane of polarized light equally, but in opposite directions. Enantiomers can form mixtures called racemates, where both enantiomers are present equally. In these cases, there is no optical activity because the rotation caused by one enantiomer cancels out that of the other. While optical activity establishes that a compound is chiral, it says nothing about the sense of chirality.