Comparative Evaluation of Vibrational Circular Dichroism and Optical Rotation for Determination of Enantiomeric Purity

Vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) is used to determine enantiomeric purity (EP) of three sample groups, and the results are compared with those obtained from optical rotation. In most typical cases EP determination from optical rotation is more accurate than that from VCD. However, in cases where either optical rotation is very small or different chiral samples are present as a mixture, EP determination from VCD provides definite advantages with reasonable accuracy.