How do enantiomers differ physically?
1 Answer
The short answer is "NOT AT ALL".
Explanation:
Enantiomers are non-superposable mirror images. They have identical physical properties, and identical chemistry in ALL ACHIRAL SITUATIONS.
Enantiomers (when the 1 isomer is present in abundance), will differ in their rotation of plane-polarized light. One stereoisomer will rotate plane-polarized light in 1 direction, and its enantiomer will rotate plane-polarized light in the opposite direction (note that this distinction falls outside the prior situation, because we have introduced handedness, chirality, with plane polarized light).
When we introduce another homochiral chemical into the equation, the interaction with a pair of enantiomers is diastereomeric rather than enantiotopic; for instance we add chiral molecule