Physical Principles of Chirality in NMR

Book excerpt: How can we study one of the most elusive molecular properties, chirality, using nuclear interactions with the magnetic field that are apparently insensitive to handedness? This book answers this question from the physicochemical point of view by providing a clear, coherent, and comprehensive review of methods used in NMR studies of chirality. Presented arguments based on fundamental physical and chemical laws and in-depth descriptions of new methods utilizing purely physical interactions are mainly addressed to spectroscopists in both academia and industry. The introductory chapters provide the reader with the basics of NMR spectroscopy as a tool for the study of chiral compounds, and those more interested in the methods of chiral discrimination will benefit from the brief description of their common points and reasons why some of them may or may not work. In the following chapters, the book shows rapid progress in a newly emerging field of chirality-sensitive NMR, in particular, a search for effects that give direct information about the absolute configuration of a molecule.