Home > Community > Is C6H5-CHCl(OH) an optical active compound?
Upvote

17

Downvote
+ Chemistry
+ Organic chemistry
Posted by
Laloo Naguib

Is C6H5-CHCl(OH) an optical active compound?

Bernard Peter Gore  Follow

Individually, yes. One of the pair of non-superimposable mirror images will rotate plane polarized light right and the other one will rotate it left. A mixture of equal concentrations of the two is called a racemic mixture and the effect or the two opposite enantiomers cancels out. So, the racemic mixture will not rotate light.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Cramer Beasly  Follow

I'm going to make some assumptions about what you are asking in order to answer the question. I'm going to assume that you have a flask of an optically pure compound and want to make that solution into an optically impure solution. (For example a flask of (+)2-chlorobutane into a flask of (+/-) 2-chlorobutane. Your question was what is that process called, and the answer is racemization.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Damien Leimbach  Follow

There are four constitutional isomers of C4H9Br: 1-bromobutane also known as n-butyl bromide, 2-bromobutane also known as sec-butyl bromide, 1-bromo-2-methylpropane also known as isobutyl bromide, and 2-bromo-2-methylpropane also known as t-butyl bromide.

2-Bromobutane has one asymmetric carbon atom, is optically active and exists in the form of two enantiomers.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Armand Wong Sr.  Follow

Diastereomers word is used for the compound which are optically active but are not mirror images of each other . The compounds will be same but will rotate the plane polarised light in opposite direction .

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Avun Jahei  Follow

This formula would represent a chiral compound - the benzylic carbon is attached to four different substituents. However, this compound would rapidly decompose to benzaldehyde and hydrogen chloride according to:

C6H5-CHCl(OH) → C6H5-CH=O + HCl

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Barry F  Follow

Mr. Nugent answered the question correctly: does the molecule have a chiral center is the first question you must always ask, a chiral center being defined as an atom with four different substituents attached. Obviously, none of the six carbons in the benzene ring count (since they have only three substituents, but the only other carbon has 4, namely C6H5, H, Cl, and OH. This observation was made in about 1865 by two different European organic chemists, van’t Hof and LeBel.

IF there two identical substituents, then that carbon has too high a symmetry (namely, it can be divided into two sides which are mirror images of each other) to exhibit chirality.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Diana Smith  Follow

Anton is quite correct. However, 6,6'-dinitro-2,2'-diphenic acid is optically active and provides an example of atropisomerism which arises because of hindered rotation about a single bond.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote