Chemistry
The Mechanism of Enantioselective Epoxidation Using Sharpless Catalysts
Quick fact
The Sharpless epoxidation, developed by Barry Sharpless, was one of the first catalytic reactions to reliably produce enantiomerically enriched epoxides from allylic alcohols, and it earned him a share of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Why this is interesting
Ever wonder how chemists create molecules that are perfect mirror images, like the key to a lock that only fits one way? The Sharpless epoxidation is a classic trick that uses a chiral catalyst to build such molecules with remarkable precision.