Stereochem.

[Harshvardhan]

® 2-chloro- 2,3-dimethylpntane is monochlorinated to give C7H14Cl2 . Can anyone tell me how many optically inactive compounds\isomers will be formed and their structures with their rs designation?

Edited June 20, 2012 by Harshvardhan

[mississippichem]

If you would please show your attempts at finding the answer, then I or some of our other chemistry people would be glad to give a suggestion.

 

It's hard for me to give a hint outright as this is really a question that is easily solved if you understand the R/S system and what constitutes an optically active compund.

 

Do you understand these definitions?

[Harshvardhan]

addition of a chlorine can either generate another chiral centre , remove the existing one or generate no chiral centre . in the firsrt case we can get a mesomer with two chiral centres that will be opticaly inactive , and i could not get any isomer fitting the second case Remember that fractional distillation can separate diastereomers , other compounds from 1 2 3 cases will be optically active bcoz we will not get a racemic mixture as the starting compound is optically pure. so basically problem reduces to finding any mesomer or compond with 0 chiral centres from the monochlorination of ®-2-chloro-2,3_dimethylpentane . but my morrison boyd book says that 1 optically inactive fraction will be obtained . pls help