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Prochirality

Prochirality

The concept of prochirality leads to the nomenclature of the individual faces of a molecule and plays a crucial role in the enantioselective reaction. It is a concept where two or more achiral molecules react to produce chiral products. A typical process is the reaction of an achiral ketone to generate a chiral alcohol. Here, the achiral reactant reacts with an achiral reducing agent, sodium borohydride, to generate an equimolar mixture of the chiral enantiomers of the product. For example, an...

Chirality in Nature

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Chirality is the most intriguing yet essential facet of nature, governing life’s biochemical processes and precision. It can be observed from a snail shell pattern in a macroscopic world to an amino acid, the minutest building block of life. Most of the snails around the world have right-coiled shells because of the intrinsic chirality in their genes. All the amino acids present in the human body exist in an enantiomerically pure state, except for glycine - the sole achiral amino acid. The...

Chirality

Chirality

Chirality is a term that describes the lack of mirror symmetry in an object. In other words, chiral objects cannot be superposed on their mirror images. For example, our feet are chiral, as the mirror image of the left foot, the right foot, cannot be superposed on the left foot.
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Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers

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Molecules that possess multiple chiral centers can afford a large number of stereoisomers. For instance, while some molecules like 2-butanol have one chiral center, defined as a tetrahedral carbon atom with four different substituents attached, several molecules like butane-2,3-diol have multiple chiral centers. A simple formula to predict the number of stereoisomers possible for a molecule with n chiral centers is 2n. However, there can be a lower number where some of the stereoisomers are...

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Learning to draw Fischer projections of molecules and understanding their relevance plays a crucial role in the visual depiction of organic molecules. A Fischer projection is a two-dimensional projection on a planar surface to simplify the three-dimensional wedge–dash representation of molecules. This is especially helpful in the case of molecules with multiple chiral centers that can be difficult to draw. Here, all the bonds of interest are represented as horizontal or vertical lines. While...

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Chirality is most prevalent in carbon-based tetrahedral compounds, but this important facet of molecular symmetry extends to sp3-hybridized nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur centers, including trivalent molecules with lone pairs. Here, the lone pair behaves as a functional group in addition to the other three substituents to form an analogous tetrahedral center that can be chiral.
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 15, 2026

Optimization, Test and Diagnostics of Miniaturized Hall Thrusters

Optimization, Test and Diagnostics of Miniaturized Hall Thrusters

Published on: February 16, 2019

Optimization of chiral structures for microscale propulsion.

Eric E Keaveny¹, Shawn W Walker, Michael J Shelley

¹Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London, SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom. e.keaveny@imperial.ac.uk

|January 16, 2013

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Researchers optimized helical microswimmer designs for faster magnetic actuation. Shape improvements yielded 70-470% speed increases, advancing microrobot technology for medical applications.

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Preparation and 3D Tracking of Catalytic Swimming Devices

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Published on: July 1, 2016

Area of Science:

* Micro- and nanoscale fabrication
* Biomedical engineering
* Robotics

Background:

* Helically shaped microswimmers are being developed for targeted drug delivery and minimally invasive surgery.
* Magnetic actuation enables control of these micro-robots.
* Optimizing swimmer design is crucial for enhancing performance.

Purpose of the Study:

* To determine microswimmer geometries that maximize speed under applied magnetic torque.
* To identify design improvements for existing helical microswimmer prototypes.
* To assess the impact of shape optimization on microswimmer propulsion.

Main Methods:

* Performing shape optimization computations.
* Analyzing helical propeller geometries with elongated cross sections.
* Incorporating attached payloads in the optimization process.

Main Results:

* Identified key geometric improvements for helical microswimmers.
* Achieved swimming speed increases ranging from 70% to 470% compared to original designs.
* Demonstrated the effectiveness of shape optimization in enhancing microswimmer performance.

Conclusions:

* Shape optimization significantly enhances the speed of magnetic microswimmers.
* Improved microswimmer designs hold promise for advanced medical applications.
* Further development of these microrobots can lead to breakthroughs in targeted therapies and surgery.