[Hootowl99]

Amazing… It's normal for chemical reactions to be be less than perfect in terms of yielding the exact product desired. This leads to downstream product purification steps, which add to costs and is not perfectly efficient itself.

Usually this inefficiency yields junk side products that have to be removed. Another possibility is that an optical isomer formed. An optical isomer is the exact chemical composition as the desired product but reversed like looking in a mirror. Think right hand and left hand. The same but different. An optical isomer can be difficult if not impossible to purify from its opposite. I’ve only personally encountered this scenario one time in a highly expensive pharmaceutical production process.

[Red Badger]

Yes, I’ve heard of that.................I wonder if their properties are ‘opposite’?.....could be useful....................