Title: chirality centre
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - chirality centre
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.C01060
Status: current

Definition
An atom holding a set of ligands in a spatial arrangement which is not superposable on its mirror image. A chirality centre is thus a generalized extension of the concept of the asymmetric carbon atom to central atoms of any element, for example $\ce{N^{+}abcd}$, $\ce{Pabc}$ as well as $\ce{Cabcd}$ .

Related Terms
- asymmetric carbon atom: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/A00479
- chirality: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C01058
- ligands: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/L03518

Source
- PAC, 1996, 68, 2193. 'Basic terminology of stereochemistry (IUPAC Recommendations 1996)' on page 2203 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199668122193)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C01060/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C01060/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C01060/xml

Citation: Citation: 'chirality centre' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.C01060
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Accessed: 2026-07-12T22:18:38+00:00