STEREOCHEMISTRY

It is a part of the chemistry that builds on the study of the spatial distribution of the atoms that make up molecules and how this affects the properties and reactivity of these molecules. It can also be defined as the study of the isomers: chemical compounds with the same molecular formula but different structural formulas. Of interest is the study of benzene. An important part of the stereochemistry is dedicated to the study of chiral molecules.

The stereochemistry provides knowledge for chemistry in general whether inorganic, organic, biological, physical chemistry or polymer chemistry.

HISTORY

It is considered to Louis Pasteur as the first chemical in observing and describing the stereochemistry, who, working in 1849 with sales of tartaric acid obtained from wine production, observed that crystals they formed and some of them rotated the plane of light polarized in the direction of clockwise and others against; however, both had the same physical and chemical properties. A final study found a difference, the rotation of the polarized light through the crystals was different in each, plus polarized light of other crystals did not rotate.

Today we know that this property to rotate polarized light due to the optical stereoisomerism. In 1874 Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff and Joseph Le Bel explained the optical activity of these compounds based on the tetrahedron-shaped arrangement formed by the carbon bonds. This is because in the separation space for these four links is greater and therefore the lowest energy corresponds to this form.