What are the total number of stereoisomers of 2,3-dichlorobutane?

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What are the total number of stereoisomers of 2,3-dichlorobutane?

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Answer 1 · 2015-12-15T23:50:36

There are three stereoisomers of 2,3-dichlorobutane.

Explanation:

The structure of 2,3-dichlorobutane is ${CH}_{3} * C HCl * C {HClCH}_{3}$ $"CH"_3stackrelcolor(blue)("*")("C")"HCl"stackrelcolor (blue)("*")("C")"HClCH"_3$

The two carbon atoms marked with blue asterisks are chiral centres.

The maximum number of stereoisomers is $2^{n}$ $2^n$ , where $n$ $n$ is the number of chiral centres.

Since $n = 2$ $n = 2$ , the maximum number of stereoisomers is $2^{2} = 4$ $2^2 = 4$ .

We can write the four possible Fischer structures as

www.chromatography-online.org

Structures 1 and 2 are two different nonsuperimposable mirror images of each other.

But Structures 3 and 4 are meso compounds.

They are superimposable on each other, so they are the same compound.

So, there are only three stereoisomers of 2,3-dichlorobutane.

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What are the total number of stereoisomers of 2,3-dichlorobutane?

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