Enantiomeric excess

Enantiomeric excess (ee) is a measurement of purity used for chiral substances. It reflects the degree to which a sample contains one enantiomer in greater amounts than the other. A racemic mixture has an ee of 0%, while a single completely pure enantiomer has an ee of 100%. A sample with 70% of one enantiomer and 30% of the other has an ee of 40% (70% − 30%).

Definition

Enantiomeric excess is defined as the absolute difference between the mole fraction of each enantiomer:

where

In practice, it is most often expressed as a percent enantiomeric excess.

The enantiomeric excess can be determined in another way if we know the amount of each enantiomer produced. If one knows the moles of each enantiomer produced then:

and are the respective fractions of enantiomers in a mixture such that

Enantiomeric excess is used as one of the indicators of the success of an asymmetric synthesis. For mixtures of diastereomers, there are analogous definitions and uses for diastereomeric excess and percent diastereomeric excess.