Five researchers (chemical technology, Budapest U. of Technology and Economics) report share the findings from their decade of investigation into obtaining enantiopure compounds using the method of optical resolution of racemates by diasteromeric salt formation. The principle is simple, they say: the pair of enantiomers, mirror images but otherwise displaying identical physicochemical properties, is transformed into a pair of non-mirror-image derivatives-salts or complexes, that is diastereomers-that, because they have different scalar properties, can be separated by conventional methods. They focus on the aspects that are not simple.