ENANTIOMERS THROUGH RESTRICTED ROTATIONMolecular structures may be chiral without possessing asymmetrically substituted carbon atoms. The biphenyls below are mirror images and non-superimposable (possessing neither centres nor planes of symmetry). In principle they may be interconverted through rotation about the central C-C bond, but in practice rotation is prevented by the bulky ortho substituents (the coplanar conformation is achiral but not accessible at room temperature).
Contents Previous page