Valemil

Valemil is a fictional chemical compound used primarily in chemistry education and speculative fiction to illustrate general principles of organic chemistry and stereochemistry. In common depictions, valemil is a small, chiral aromatic molecule possessing at least two stereocenters, which yields multiple stereoisomers including enantiomers and diastereomers. The term is typically used as a teaching placeholder rather than a real substance, and there are no validated experimental data outside fictional or pedagogical contexts.

In discussions and demonstrations, valemil serves to demonstrate topics such as chiral resolution, optical activity, racemization, and reaction selectivity. A hypothetical synthesis might involve a Friedel–Crafts-type setup to establish the aromatic framework, followed by introduction of stereocenters through asymmetric functionalization. Reactivity discussed in classrooms includes typical substitutions on the aromatic ring and simple additions at the stereocenters, used to illustrate how stereochemistry influences reaction outcomes and product distributions.

Valemil figures in textbooks and online resources as a neutral example for computational modeling, stereochemical calculators, and thought experiments about reaction mechanisms. Since valemil is not a real compound, it lacks established safety data, and practical handling should be guided by standard laboratory precautions for organic solids in educational settings.

See also: Chirality, Enantiomer, Diastereomer, Stereochemistry, Optical activity, Racemate.