An introduction to coordination compounds - Tetrahedral complexes

3 important questions on An introduction to coordination compounds - Tetrahedral complexes

What is a chiral metal?

The only isomers of tetrahedral complexes normally encountered are those where either all four ligands are different or where there are two unsymmetrical bidentate chelating ligands.

What is optical isomerism? And why are they called optical isomerism?

The existence of a pair of chiral complexes that are each other’s mirror image (like a right hand and a left hand), and that have lifetimes that are long enough for them to be separable, is called optical isomerism. Optical isomers are so called because they are optically active, in the sense that one enantiomer rotates the plane of polarized light in one direction and the other rotates it through an equal angle in the opposite direction.

Of what does a enantiomer pair consist?

Of two mirror images isomers joined togheter

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