enantiomerian

Enantiomerian is a term sometimes used in chemistry to refer to a pair of enantiomers. Enantiomers are stereoisomers that are non-superimposable mirror images of each other. This means that if you were to hold one enantiomer in front of a mirror, the reflection would look identical to the other enantiomer, but you would not be able to perfectly align them in three-dimensional space. The relationship is often compared to that of left and right hands.

Chirality is the property of a molecule that leads to its existence as enantiomers. A molecule is chiral if it lacks certain symmetry elements, most commonly a plane of symmetry or a center of inversion. The "handedness" of a chiral molecule means it can exist in two distinct forms, its enantiomers. These enantiomers have identical physical properties such as melting point, boiling point, and solubility in achiral solvents. However, they differ in their interaction with plane-polarized light and with other chiral molecules.

One enantiomer will rotate plane-polarized light in one direction (e.g., dextrorotatory, indicated by (+) or d), while its mirror image will rotate it by the same magnitude in the opposite direction (levorotatory, indicated by (-) or l). This phenomenon is called optical activity. In biological systems, enantiomers can exhibit significantly different pharmacological or biological activities because biological receptors and enzymes are often chiral themselves, leading to selective interactions with only one enantiomer. The concept of enantiomerian emphasizes this pair-wise relationship between two mirror-image chiral molecules.