What is the difference between chiral and stereo center?
1 Answer
Jan 16, 2016
A stereocenter is a more general term.
Explanation:
A chirality center can be a stereocenter, but a stereocenter is not necessarily a chirality center.
For example, cis- and trans-2-butene are stereoisomers, but not chiral isomers.
Some compounds are also stereoisomers but, because of symmetry, they are not chiral isomers,
For example, cis- and trans-1,2-dichlorocyclohexane are stereoisomers, but only the trans isomers are chiral (the cis isomer is a meso compound because of symmetry.symmetry).
