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Chapter 7 : Stereochemistry |
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Diastereomers
There are a couple of ways we can
use to define diastereomers:
Chiral molecules that possess two (or
more) chirality centers (we will define this soon)
have stereoisomers that may be either enantiomers or diastereomers. Diastereomers
are stereoisomers that are not mirror images.
Look at the two JSMOL images of molecules
shown below and make sure you can see this, for example, look at the relative positions of the two halogens given the similar positions of the alkyl chain.
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| (S,R)-2-bromo-3-chlorobutane |
(R,R)-2-bromo-3-chlorobutane |
Diastereomers can have quite
different physical and chemical properties from one another. This is important
as it allows them to be separated. Do you remember the properties
of enantiomers ?
Important
properties of diastereomers that you should know:
- they have different
physical properties
- they have different
chemical / biological properties
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