How many stereoisomers of 2-chloro-3-methylbutane exist?

1 Answer
Truong-Son N.
Dec 3, 2015

Four.

Simply put, there are two configurations per stereocenter on a compound with all #sp^3# carbons; R or S. So, we rack up stereoisomers according to #2*2*2*[...]*2 = 2^n# where #n# is the number of stereocenters.

Also, although meso isomers could reduce the number of stereoisomers, there are none here because clearly, #"Cl" ne "CH"_3#, i.e. there is no plane of symmetry. Therefore, we can ignore meso isomers.

As a result, there are #2^2 = 4# stereoisomers.

And if you worked it out, you can see that you only have permutations of (R, R), (R, S), (S, R), and (S, S).

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