How do you know an alkene is chiral or not?

Alkenes have double bond so are there any way to tell an alkene is chiral or not

A chiral carbon is one with 4 different groups bonded to it. As a carbon in a double bond only has 3 (e.g. H2C=CH2) it cannot be chiral.

HOWEVER it is possible there is another C in the molecule that could be chiral. Look to see if there is any C with 4 completely different groups attached to it.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 2

troubadour.

Original post by irisxinzhao

Alkenes have double bond so are there any way to tell an alkene is chiral or not

Chirality is determined by whether a compound has an asymmetric carbon centre, which only happens when you have a carbon atom with four different atoms/groups attached to it. It depends on which alkenes you mean but it's pretty much impossible for the shorter ones because the double bond results in carbon atoms being bonded to fewer than four things. Even in the longer ones, at least two of the hydrogen atoms on a saturated carbon atom would need to be substituted for two different groups e.g. a halogen, a methyl group etc.