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Many chiral molecules have point chirality, namely a single chiral stereogenic center that coincides with an atom. This stereogenic center usually has four or more bonds to different groups, and may be carbon (as in many biological molecules), phosphorus (as in many organophosphates), silicon, or a metal (as in many chiral coordination compounds).
The term "chiral" in general is used to describe the object that is non-superposable on its mirror image. [18] In chemistry, chirality usually refers to molecules. Two mirror images of a chiral molecule are called enantiomers or optical isomers. Pairs of enantiomers are often designated as "right-", "left-handed" or, if they have no bias ...
Chemical compounds that come as mirror-image pairs are referred to by chemists as chiral or handed molecules. [1] Each twin is called an enantiomer. Drugs that exhibit handedness are referred to as chiral drugs. Chiral drugs that are equimolar (1:1) mixture of enantiomers are called racemic drugs
For example, the molecules of cholesteric liquid crystals are randomly positioned but macroscopically they exhibit a helicoidal orientational order. Other examples of structurally chiral materials can be fabricated either as stacks of uniaxial laminas or using sculptured thin films .
Two types of molecules having axial chirality: allenes (left) and binaryl atropisomers (right) In chemistry, axial chirality is a special case of chirality in which a molecule contains two pairs of chemical groups in a non-planar arrangement about an axis of chirality so that the molecule is not superposable on its mirror image.
Compounds with these properties consist of chiral molecules and are said to have optical activity. If a chiral molecule is dextrorotary, its enantiomer (geometric mirror image) will be laevorotary, and vice versa. Enantiomers rotate plane-polarized light the same number of degrees, but in opposite directions.
Homochirality is a uniformity of chirality, or handedness.Objects are chiral when they cannot be superposed on their mirror images. For example, the left and right hands of a human are approximately mirror images of each other but are not their own mirror images, so they are chiral.
For example, (R)-limonene smells like oranges, while (S)-limonene smells like lemons. Both molecules have the same chemical formula, but their spatial orientations are different, which makes a big difference in their biological properties. Chiral molecules in the receptors in our noses can tell the difference between these things.
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