Stereochemistry at S, P centers with lone pair

jayson

In one of my organic chemistry textbook they list several compounds with central sulfurs with three attached ligands (=O and two other -R groups). They name these with R or S stereochemistry. I'm quite confused as with carbon the terms re and si would be used. I'm not really sure how to assign stereochemistry for these as there are only three groups. If I treat the lowest priority group as I woudl treat a hydrogen in a carbon center that leaves two groups that could be counted both clockwise and counterclockwise, suggesting, AFAIK, that R and S could not apply in this case. Any idea how I would go about assigning R and S to these centers?

Thanks in advance!
Jayson

jayson · Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 6:32 am Post subject: Nevermind...

Nevermind, I found some notes from class where we talked about this. Looks like I treat the lone pair as the lowest priority and set it's position to in or out based on other groups (i.e. if the R group is coming out of the page then the lone pair must go into the page, and vice versa if the R group is going in to the page). Then it's just like assigning stereochemistry for carbon centers.