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Organic chemistry
Course: Organic chemistry > Unit 4
Lesson 2: Enantiomers- Drawing enantiomers
- Cahn-Ingold-Prelog system for naming enantiomers
- R,S system
- R,S (Cahn-Ingold-Prelog) naming system example 2
- R,S system practice
- More R,S practice
- Fischer projection introduction
- Fischer projection practice
- Optical activity
- Optical activity calculations
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R,S (Cahn-Ingold-Prelog) naming system example 2
R,S (Cahn-Ingold-Prelog) Naming System Example 2. Created by Sal Khan.
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- hi, at "" when mr khan was naming the compound, i was wondering if he made a mistake by saying 2,3-dimethyl instead of saying 2,3-trimethyl coz there are three CH3's.....or maybe someone correct me and explain it to me please? =) thank you x 4:00(23 votes)
- There are 3 CH3s but only two of them are groups, one of them is part of the main chain(73 votes)
- At the very end, when the compound is finally named, should the prefix be 2S instead of S, because we must specify the chiral center?(19 votes)
- Since there is only one chiral center in the molecule, there's no need to differentiate which carbon it is.(36 votes)
- how does the molecule go from sticking out of the page to going into the page, while the others just move from the plane of the page to sticking out? Isn't that too many degrees of rotation, it doesn't make sense.(4 votes)
- Another thing you can do is just don't even move #4 (the hydrogen)! Leave it sticking out towards you. What do you get when you draw a circle from 1 to 2 to 3 in this case? R configuration (clockwise). Since you know the hydrogen needs to be sticking out back in order to properly evaluate the configuration (opposite of sticking out front), it's just the opposite configuration - S (counterclockwise). A really easy way to visualize this is to stand up and hold out your index finger directly in front of you and draw circles in the air in a clockwise fashion (R configuration). Then, while you keep drawing that clockwise circle in the air, stand right behind it - you'll see that it now appears to be rotating counterclockwise (S)! Your body is taking on hydrogen's perspective and now you're in the correct position (behind)! I hope that helps.(26 votes)
- How do you know that the #2 group is the one that is on top of the structure instead of the #1 group like you have here? If the #2 group is on top, meaning it would not rotate, the molecule would be clockwise instead of counter clockwise. Is there anyway to tell?(5 votes)
- that the thing, you always HOLD the 1st group and rotate the other until the 4th group is going into the page(19 votes)
- What's the actual difference between chiral molecules or chirality and enantiomers?(5 votes)
- A molecule is chiral when it is NOT superimposable to its mirror image. That's it.
Enantiomers is just a term used to help visualize a pair of molecules that are mirror images to eachother. So if you see a molecule and its mirror image, then it is considered as a pair of enantiomers.(9 votes)
- hi, how would you rotate the hydrogen if your #1 group was in the back and hydrogen group was the one that was coming out of the paper(4 votes)
- It's even easier than that.
Prioritize as you normally would. Draw the circle from highest to lowest priority 1 to 2 to 3.
Now. Is the lowest priority substituent away from you? In this case you said no.
So the circle your drew, whether R or S is wrong. Just switch it to get the right answer.(7 votes)
- Around, why do you not move the #1 atom? Is that in all cases where we leave the largest group and rotate all other atoms around? 9:00(5 votes)
- No, you don't necessarily leave the largest group. The goal is to get the #4 priority atom pointing away from you (into the page). In this case, that could have been achieved by holding #1 and rotating #2, #3 and #4, as Sal has done. It would have been equally correct if Sal had chosen to hold #2 and rotate #3, #4, and #1.
In this case you can't hold #4, because that's the one you want to move, and you can't hold #3 because it is pointing where you need #4 to point, so #3 needs to move to make room for #4.(5 votes)
- Is there ever a case where the following technique does not work?: If the lowest ranked group is not directed into the page, name the molecule as R or S as it looks (using proper rankings for group priorities) and then switch to the opposite. I have found that to work well, and to make naming large or many chiral molecules much faster.(5 votes)
- if there is more than one chiral atom, should i need to use more than one S's and R's for every chiral atom?
How this kind of situation will apply ?(3 votes)- Yes, each chiral atom will be labelled with a number for the position — e.g. (2S,3R)-2,3-dihydroxybutanal.
See the following for the structure:
http://www.Che spider.com/Chemical-Structure.4810159.html
See this video for details:
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/organic-chemistry/stereochemistry-topic/optical-activity/v/more-rs-practice(4 votes)
- Is it possible for a molecule to have multiple chiral centres? If so, how would it be named?(2 votes)
- Yes, many molecules do have multiple chiral centers. Here is a nice explanation:
http://webhost.bridgew.edu/fgorga/stereochem/twocntr.htm
An interesting note: Many compounds that do have multiple chiral centers are often ACHIRAL - they are known as Meso compounds. Even though they have multiple chirality centers they often contain a plane of symmetry and are therefore not chiral.(4 votes)
Video transcript
Let's see if we can name this
molecule using the-- sometimes called the R-S system, or the
Cahn-Ingold-Prelog system. And the first thing to do is
just to see if there are any chiral centers in
this molecule. If there aren't, then
we don't even have to use the R-S system. We can just use our standard
nomenclature rules and we'd be done. So if we look here, this carbon
is attached to three hydrogens, so it's definitely
not attached to four different groups. Same thing about this
carbon right here. This carbon right here is
attached to a fluorine, but then it's attached to
two methyl groups. So it's the same group, so
this is also not a chiral carbon or an asymmetric
carbon. This carbon right here is
attached to a hydrogen and three other carbons, but each
of these three carbons look like different groups. This carbon is attached to two
methyls and a fluorine. This carbon is attached to two
hydrogens and a bromine. This carbon is just
a methyl group. So this right here does look
like a chiral center. It does look like a
chiral carbon, and the other ones don't. This is just a methyl group. It has three hydrogens, so
definitely not attached to four different groups. And this is attached to two
hydrogens, and those are obviously the same group,
so this is also not a chiral center. So we have one chiral
center, so the R-S naming system will apply. But a good starting point will
just be naming it using our standard nomenclature rules. And to do that we look for the
longest carbon chain here. Let's see, if we start over
here, and I don't know what direction I'm going to name it
from yet, but I just want to identify the longest chain. If we went from here, we
have one, two, three. We can either go to four or to
four there, so we definitely have four carbons, Four
carbon, longest chain. So that tells us that we will
be using the prefix but-, or it will be a butane, because
they're all single bonds here, so it is a butane. But to decide whether we branch
off, it doesn't matter whether we use this
CH3 or this CH3, they're the same group. But to decide whether we use
this part of the longest chain or we use that, we think about
the rule that the core chain to use should have as many
simple groups attached to it as possible, as opposed to
as few complex groups. So if we used this carbon as
part of our longest chain, then this will be a group that's
attached to it, which would be a bromomethyl group,
which is not as simple as maybe it could be. But if we use this carbon in our
longest chain, we'll have two groups. We'll have a bromo attached,
and we'll also have a methyl group. And that's what we want. We want more simple groups
attached to the longest chain. So what we're going to do is
we're going to use this carbon, this carbon, this
carbon, and that carbon as our longest chain. And we want to start from the
end that is closest to something being attached
to it, and that bromine is right there. So there's going to be our
number one carbon, our number two carbon, our number
three carbon, and our number four carbon. And then we can label the
different groups and then figure out what order they
should be listed in. So this is a 1-bromo and
then this will be a 2-methyl right here. And then just a hydrogen. Then three we have a fluoro, so
on a carbon three, we have a fluoro, and then on carbon
three, we also have a methyl group right here, so we
also have a 3-methyl. So when we name it, we put
in alphabetical order. Bromo comes first, so this thing
right here is 1-bromo. Then alphabetically, fluoro
comes next, 1-bromo-3-fluoro. We have two methyls, so it's
going to be 2 comma 3-dimethyl. And remember, the D doesn't
count in alphabetical order. Dimethylbutane, because
we have the longest chain is four carbons. Dimethylbutane. So that's just the standard
nomenclature rules. We still haven't used
the R-S system. Now we can do that. Now to think about that, we
already said that this is our chiral center, so we just have
to essentially rank the groups attached to it in order of
atomic number and then use the Cahn-Ingold-Prelog rules,
and we'll do all that in this example. So let's look at the different
groups attached to it. So when you look at it,
this guy has three carbons and a hydrogen. Carbon is definitely higher
in atomic number on the Periodic Table. It has an atomic number 6. Hydrogen is 1. You probably know
that already. So hydrogen is definitely
going to be number four. So let me put number four there
next to the hydrogen. And let me find a nice color. I'll do it in white. So hydrogen is definitely
the number four group. We have to differentiate between
this carbon group, that carbon group, and
that carbon group. And the way you do it, if
there's a tie on the three carbons, you then look at what
is attached to those carbons, and you compare the highest
thing attached to each of those carbons to the highest
things attached to the other carbons, and then you
do the same ranking. And if that's a tie, then you
keep going on and on and on. So on this carbon right here,
we have a bromine. Bromine has an atomic
number of 35, which is higher than carbon. So this guy has a bromine
attached to it. This guy only has hydrogen
attached to it. This guy has a fluorine
attached to it. That's the highest thing. So this is going to be the third
lowest, or I should say the second to lowest, because it
only has hydrogens attached to it, so that is
number three. The one has the bromine attached
to it is going to be number one, and the one that has
the fluorine attached to it is number two. And just a reminder, we were
tied with the carbon, so we have to look at the next highest
constituent, and even if this had three fluorines
attached to it, the bromine would still trump it. You compare the highest to the
highest. So now that we've done that, let me redraw this
molecule so it's a little bit easier to visualize. So I'll draw our chiral
carbon in the middle. And I'm just doing this for
visualization purposes. And right here we have
our number one group. I'll literally just call that
our number one group. So right there that is
our number one group. It's in the plane
of the screen. So I'll just call that
our number one group. Over here, also in the plane
of the screen, I have our number two group. So let me do it like that. So then you have your number
two group, just like that. And then you have your number
three group behind the molecule right now the
way it's drawn. I'll do that in magenta. So then you have your
number three group. It's behind the molecule, so
I'll draw it like this. This is our number
three group. And then we have our number
four group, which is the hydrogen pointing
out right now. And I'll just do that
in a yellow. We have our number four
group pointing out in front right now. So that is number four,
just like that. Actually, let me draw it a
little bit clearer, so it looks a little bit more like the
tripod structure that it's supposed to be. So let me redraw the
number three group. The number three group should
look like-- so this is our number three group. Let me draw it a little
bit more like this. The number three group
is behind us. And then finally, you have
your number four group in yellow, which is just a
hydrogen that's coming straight out. So that is coming straight out
of-- well, not straight out, but at an angle out
of the page. So that's our number four group,
I'll just label it number four. It really is just a hydrogen,
so I really didn't have to simplify it much there. Now by the R-S system, or by the
Cahn-Ingold-Prelog system, we want our number four group
to be the one furthest back. So we really want it where the
number three position is. And so the easiest way I can
think of doing that is you can imagine this is a tripod that's
leaning upside down. Or another way to view it
is you can view it as an umbrella, where this is the
handle of the umbrella and that's the top of the
umbrella that would block the rain, I guess. But the easiest way to get the
number four group that's actually a hydrogen in the
number three position would be to rotate it. You could imagine, rotate it
around the axis defined by the number one group. So the number one group
is just going to stay where it is. The number four is going
to rotate to the number three group. Number three is going to rotate
around to the number two group, and then the number
two group is going to rotate to where the number four
group is right now. So if we were to redraw
that, let's redraw our chiral carbon. So let me scroll over
a little bit. So we have our chiral carbon. I put the little asterisk there
to say that that's our chiral carbon. The number four group
is now behind. I'll do it with the circles. It makes it look a little bit
more like atoms. So the number four group is now behind where
the number three group used to be, so number four
is now there. Number one hasn't changed. That's kind of the axis that
we rotated around. So the number one group
has not changed. Number one is still there. Number two is now where number
four used to be, so number two is now jutting out
of the page. And then we have number three
is now where number two was. So number three is there. And now that we've put our
fourth group behind the molecule, we literally just
figure out whether we have to go clockwise or counterclockwise
to go from one, two to three. And that's pretty
straightforward. To go from one to two to
three, we have to go counterclockwise. Or another way to think of it,
we're going to the left, counterclockwise. At least on the top of
the clock, we're going to the left. And so, since we're going to
left, this is S or sinister. This is S, which stands
for sinister, which is Latin for left. So we're done. We've named it using
the R-S system. This molecule is (S)--
sinister-- 1-bromo-3-fluoro-2,3-di--