Organozinc chemistry an overview and general experimental guidelines

Organozinc chemistry an overview and general experimental guidelines 

PAUL KNOCHEL, PHILIP JONES, and FALK LANGER 

Zinc is found in a relatively low abundance in nature, but has been known for a long time due to the ease with which it is isolated from its ores. Despite the low occurrence, the ease of isolation results in today, zinc metal and zinc salts being available at low cost from the usual chemical suppliers. 

A further asset of this class of reagents is the covalent character of the zinc-carbon bond, this allows these organozinc reagents to undergo trans-metallation reactions smoothly and cleanly with a wide variety of transition metal salts. Thus, the zincated phosphine 5 can be reacted with (acetonitrile) 

These few examples demonstrate the broad range of the synthetic potential of organozinc compounds and provide a foretaste of what can be achieved with these highly effective and synthetically valuable reagents. 

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