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This means that although all chirality centers are stereocenters, not every stereocenter is a chirality center. Stereocenters are important identifiers for chiral or achiral molecules. As a general rule, if a molecule has no stereocenters, it is considered achiral. If it has at least one stereocenter, the molecule has the potential for chirality.
[4] [5] The configuration of other chiral compounds was then related to that of (+)-glyceraldehyde by sequences of chemical reactions. For example, oxidation of (+)-glyceraldehyde (1) with mercury oxide gives (−)-glyceric acid (2), a reaction that does not alter the stereocenter. Thus the absolute configuration of (−)-glyceric acid must be ...
The conjugacy definition would also allow a mirror image of the structure, but this is not needed, the structure itself is achiral. For example, if a symmetry group contains a 3-fold axis of rotation, it contains rotations in two opposite directions. (The structure is chiral for 11 pairs of space groups with a screw axis.)
An achiral environment does not differentiate the molecular twins whereas a chiral environment does distinguish the left-handed version from the right-handed version. Human body, a classic bio-environment, is inherently handed as it is filled with chiral discriminators like amino acids, enzymes, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids, etc.
An achiral molecule having chiral conformations could theoretically form a mixture of right-handed and left-handed crystals, as often happens with racemic mixtures of chiral molecules (see Chiral resolution#Spontaneous resolution and related specialized techniques), or as when achiral liquid silicon dioxide is cooled to the point of becoming ...
Enantiotopic groups are identical and indistinguishable except in chiral environments. For instance, the CH 2 hydrogens in ethanol (CH 3 CH 2 OH) are normally enantiotopic, but can be made different (diastereotopic) if combined with a chiral center, for instance by conversion to an ester of a chiral carboxylic acid such as lactic acid, or if coordinated to a chiral metal center, or if ...
A molecule having exactly one chiral stereocenter (usually an asymmetric carbon atom) can be labeled (R) or (S), but a molecule having multiple stereocenters needs more than one label. For example, the essential amino acid L-threonine contains two chiral stereocenters and is written (2S,3S)-threonine.
Erythritol is achiral (has at least one conformation with a plane or center of symmetry), whereas threitol is chiral. A useful English-language mnemonic device is that "threitol" and "chiral" both begin with consonants, whereas "erythritol" and "achiral" both begin with vowels. Another threo compound is threonine, one of the amino acids coded ...