Organic Chemistry - Optical Activity | Specific Rotation | 5.7 Organic Chemistry

Chad gives a brief breakdown of the optical activity of chiral molecules. He begins by showing what is meant by plane-polarized light and how chiral molecules result in its rotation and are termed 'optically active,' while achiral molecules do not and are termed 'optically inactive.' He then defines the relative configurations, dextrarotatory (d or +) and levorotatory (l or -), and explains how these relate to the absolute configurations, R and S. Chad then explains how to perform calculations involving the relationship between a chiral molecule's specific and observed rotations, paying particular attention to the units for the species' concentration and the path length. Finally, Chad discusses solutions that contain mixtures of enantiomers. He goes on to describe the relationship between a single enantiomer's specific rotation and the observed specific rotation of the mixture and how these are related to the optical purity and the enantiomeric excess. If you want all my study guides, quizzes, and practice exams, check out my premium course at https://www.chadsprep.com/organic-chemistry-youtube 00:00 Lesson Introduction 00:46 Relative Configurations: dextrorotatory (d/+) vs levorotatory (l/-) 07:14 Specific Rotation of Chiral Molecules 10:49 Optical Purity and Enantiomeric Excess of Mixtures of Enantiomers https://www.chadsprep.com/ #organicchemistry #organicchemistrytutorial #stereochemistry