What is an achiral carbon atom?
1 Answer
Mar 11, 2016
An achiral carbon atom is an atom INCAPABLE of generating optical isomerism. In practice, this means a carbon,
Explanation:
A carbon which bears 4 different substituents,
Most of the time, such carbon centres are present AS BOTH OPTICAL ISOMERS. These so-called racemic mixtures still contain chiral carbons, but because both isomers are present (so-called optical antipodes), the mixture will not rotate plane-polarized light.