Inorganic Chemistry
Many coordination compounds are chiral. At one time, the chirality was associated with organic chemistry, but this misconception was overthrown by the resolution of a purely inorganic compound, hexol, by Alfred Werner. A famous example is tris(bipyridine)ruthenium(II) complex in which the three bipyridine ligands adopt a chiral propeller-like arrangement.
In this case, the Ru atom is the stereogenic center. The two enantiomers of complexes such as 2+ may be designated as Λ (capital lambda, the Greek version of "L", for a left-handed twist of the propeller described by the ligands) and Δ (capital delta, Greek "D", for a right-handed twist).
It is now appreciated that chirality is pervasive in inorganic chemistry, an example from the mineral kingdom being quartz.
Read more about this topic: Chirality (chemistry)
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