A little bit of help, please? Thanks!

Allen DLP materialAllen DLP material

1 Answer
May 28, 2018

(2) An optically inactive compound

Explanation:

Lindlar's catalyst is used in order to hydrogenate alkynes into cis (or Z) alkenes.

So, first, we observe that there is one (and only one) chiral centre in the molecule, which is the carbon with 4 single bonds.

The products formed from the reaction will not have this chiral centre anymore. This is because the MeC_2 substituent will be hydrogenated into Me(CH)_2, which is the same as the right (both are Z-enantiomers).

LindlarLindlar

Therefore, the product will be optically inactive due to not having a chiral centre.