Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 2, 2025

Coulomb Explosion Imaging as a Tool to Distinguish Between Stereoisomers
Published on: August 18, 2017
Assessing the performance of rotational spectroscopy in chiral analysis
Sérgio R Domingos1, Cristóbal Pérez1, Mark D Marshall2
1Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY Notkestraße 85 22607 Hamburg Germany melanie.schnell@desy.de.
Abstract:
The capabilities of rotational spectroscopy-based methods as tools to deliver accurate and precise chirality-sensitive information are still breaking ground, but their applicability in the challenging field of analytical chemistry is already clear. In this mini review, we explore the current abilities and challenges of two emergent techniques for chiral analysis based on rotational spectroscopy. For that, we will showcase the two methods (microwave 3-wave mixing and chiral tag rotational spectroscopy) while testing their performance to solve the absolute configuration and the enantiomeric excess of a blind sample containing a mixture of enantiomers of styrene oxide.
Related Concept Videos
Properties of Enantiomers and Optical Activity
Chirality
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...
¹H NMR Chemical Shift Equivalence: Enantiotopic and Diastereotopic Protons
In chiral compounds such as 2-butanol, replacing the methylene hydrogens at C3 produces a pair of...
Chirality in Nature
Prochirality
Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers

