From heat and cold comes image and mirror image
Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - 08:50
in Physics & Chemistry
Many chemical compounds exist as an image and a mirror image: they differ in their spatial orientation, like the left and right hand. The properties of these so-called chiral molecules are also often quite different – synthesising them cleanly is therefore of critical importance in pharmaceutical development and agricultural chemistry. The working group headed by Prof. Dr. Oliver Trapp at the Institute of Organic Chemistry of Heidelberg University has succeeded for the first time in developing a catalyst that generates both molecular mirror images of a compound solely by controlling the temperature. Their findings were published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.