Enantiomeric purity determination by NMR: proving the purity of a single enantiomer

The NMR spectra of separate samples of an analyte complexed with each enantiomer of a chiral solvating agent (CSA) give an accurate estimate of the chemical shifts of racemic analytes in the presence of a single enantiomer of the CSA. This effect allows a CSA-based chiral NMR method to be developed when only a single enantiomer of analyte is available. The ability to develop a method capable of discriminating between enantiomers in these circumstances is useful, for example, to resolve the question of whether racemization has occurred during the synthesis of a chiral molecule.