September 22, 2008
by Arvin Moser, Team Manager, Application Scientists, ACD/Labs
The underlying essence of a structure elucidation process is to structurally distinguish an unknown from a set of possible isomers. This is evident by the number of possible isomers for a given molecular formula.
The chart below divides isomers into two groups: Structural/Constitutional/Regio and Stereo/Spatial isomers. Wikipedia links are included for further reading into the different isomer classifications.
Structural/Constitutional/Regio
Isotopomers
Stereo/Spatial
E/Z
Confomers
Rotamers
D/L
(+)/(-)
R/S
Epimers
Anomers
α/β