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Chirality in Nature

Chirality in Nature

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.

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.
Chiral objects exhibit a sense of handedness when they interact with another chiral object. For example, our left foot can only fit in the left shoe and not in the right shoe. Achiral objects — objects that have...

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 at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur

Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur

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.
A consequence of chirality is the need for enantiomeric resolution. While this is theoretically possible for all...

Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers

Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers

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...

Fischer Projections

Fischer Projections

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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Self-assembling Morphologies Obtained from Helical Polycarbodiimide Copolymers and Their Triazole Derivatives

Self-assembling Morphologies Obtained from Helical Polycarbodiimide Copolymers and Their Triazole Derivatives

Published on: February 7, 2017

Light-Directed Dynamic Chirality Inversion in Functional Self-Organized Helical Superstructures.

Hari Krishna Bisoyi¹, Quan Li²

¹Liquid Crystal Institute and Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program, Kent State University, Kent, OH, 44242, USA.

Angewandte Chemie (International Ed. in English)

|January 15, 2016

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Researchers are developing light-responsive molecular switches to control the handedness of helical liquid crystals. This breakthrough enables tunable reflection of polarized light, paving the way for advanced optical materials.

Keywords:

chiral liquid crystals helix inversion light-driven systems molecular switches and motors

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Controlling the Size, Shape and Stability of Supramolecular Polymers in Water

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Published on: August 2, 2012

Area of Science:

Supramolecular Chemistry
Materials Science
Liquid Crystals

Background:

Helical superstructures are prevalent in nature and synthetic systems.
Controlling the chirality of these dynamic structures with external stimuli is challenging but crucial for applications.
Light-driven chirality inversion in cholesteric liquid crystals is a key area of research due to its impact on light reflection properties.

Purpose of the Study:

To review recent advancements in light-driven chirality inversion of cholesteric liquid crystals.
To discuss the role of photoisomerizable chiral molecular switches and motors in this process.
To highlight rational molecular designs for achieving reversible handedness inversion.

Main Methods:

Discussion of various classes of chiral photoresponsive dopants (guests) used with nematic hosts.
Analysis of molecular designs for chiral switches enabling light-induced handedness inversion.
Review of self-organized helical superstructures and their stimuli-responsive behavior.

Main Results:

Photoisomerizable chiral molecular switches and motors can effectively induce reversible chirality inversion in cholesteric liquid crystals.
Different guest-host systems demonstrate light-driven control over the helical superstructure's handedness.
Rational molecular design is key to achieving desired handedness inversion properties.

Conclusions:

Significant progress has been made in developing soft materials with stimuli-directed chirality inversion.
Emerging challenges and opportunities exist in designing multifunctional host-guest systems for optical applications.
This field holds promise for advanced materials with tunable optical properties based on light-induced chirality control.