The association between molecular chirality and helical characteristics known as the chirality-helicity equivalence is determined for the first time by quantifying a chirality-helicity measure consistent with photoexcitation circular dichroism experiments. This is demonstrated using a formally achiral SN 2 reaction and a chiral SN 2 reaction. Both the achiral and chiral SN 2 reactions possess significant values of the chirality-helicity measure and display a Walden inversion, i. e. an inversion of the chirality between the reactant and product. We also track the chirality-helicity measure along the reaction path and discover the presence of chirality at the transition state and two intermediate structures for both reactions. We demonstrate the need for the chirality-helicity measure to differentiate between steric effects due to eclipsed conformations and chiral behaviors in formally achiral species. We explain the significance of this work for asymmetric synthetic reactions including the intermediate structures where the Cahn-Ingold-Prelog (CIP) rules cannot be used.
Keywords: SN2 reaction; Walden inversion; asymmetric catalysis; molecular chirality; next generation QTAIM.
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