Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 13, 2025

Coulomb Explosion Imaging as a Tool to Distinguish Between Stereoisomers
Published on: August 18, 2017
Chirality determination in crystals
Ángela Valentín-Pérez1, Patrick Rosa1, Elizabeth A Hillard1,2
1Univ. Bordeaux, CNRS, Bordeaux-INP, ICMCB, UMR 5026, F-33600 Pessac, Cedex, France.
Abstract:
This tutorial review article discusses chirality determination in the solid state, both in single crystals and in crystal assemblies, with an emphasis on X-ray diffraction. The main principles of using X-ray diffraction to reliably determine absolute structure are summarized, and the complexity which can be encountered in chiral structures-kryptoracemates, scalemates, and inversion twinning-is illustrated with examples from our laboratories and the literature. We then address the problem of the bulk crystallization and discuss different techniques to determine chirality in a large assembly of crystal structures, with a special prominence given to an X-ray natural circular dichroism mapping technique that we recently reported.
More Related Videos
10:45Crystallization and Structural Determination of an Enzyme:Substrate Complex by Serial Crystallography in a Versatile Microfluidic Chip
Published on: March 20, 2021
08:46Determining the Ice-binding Planes of Antifreeze Proteins by Fluorescence-based Ice Plane Affinity
Published on: January 15, 2014
Related Concept Videos
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...
Prochirality
Chirality in Nature
Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur
A consequence of chirality is the need for enantiomeric resolution. While this is theoretically possible for all...
Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers
Stereoisomerism of Cyclic Compounds