An understanding of the effect that steric interactions have on reactivity and structural conformation is of vital importance in organic chemistry. However, visualizing the three-dimensional (3D) space that molecules occupy can be challenging. High-quality, space-filling molecular models created with 3D printing help to illustrate the effect that steric bulk has on reactivity and conformation when used in conjunctionwith computational chemistry software.
Diaz-Allen et al. (Fri,) studied this question.