Enantiomerissä

Enantiomerissä refers to enantiomers, which are a specific type of stereoisomer. Stereoisomers are molecules that have the same chemical formula and the same atoms connected in the same order, but differ in the three-dimensional arrangement of their atoms in space. Enantiomers are stereoisomers that are non-superimposable mirror images of each other. This means that if you try to place one enantiomer on top of its mirror image, they will not perfectly align, much like a left hand and a right hand are mirror images but cannot be perfectly superimposed.

Molecules that are enantiomers typically contain at least one chiral center, which is an atom (often carbon) bonded to four different groups. The presence of a chiral center leads to the possibility of two different spatial arrangements, resulting in the two enantiomeric forms. These two forms are often designated by specific prefixes, such as R and S (using the Cahn-Ingold-Prelog priority rules) or D and L (especially in biochemistry).

Enantiomers share identical physical properties, such as melting point, boiling point, and solubility, in an achiral environment. However, they can differ significantly in their chemical and biological properties, particularly when interacting with other chiral molecules. This is critically important in fields like pharmacology, where one enantiomer of a drug might be therapeutically active while the other is inactive or even toxic. Enantiomers also interact differently with plane-polarized light. One enantiomer will rotate the plane of polarized light in a clockwise direction (dextrorotatory, denoted by + or d), while its mirror image will rotate it in the counterclockwise direction by the same magnitude (levorotatory, denoted by - or l). A mixture containing equal amounts of both enantiomers is called a racemic mixture.