Title: Investigating di-n-Butylcalcium
Authors: Gabriel Duneş, Matthieu Hédouin, Cléo Bastien, Samia Kahlal, Marie Cordier, William Erb, Florence Mongin, Jean-Yves Saillard, Hassan Oulyadi, Yann Sarazin
Published: 13 August 2025 in ChemistryEurope

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🔬 What They Did

The researchers finally made and studied di-n-butylcalcium, a long-sought but unstable organocalcium compound, by carefully reacting common calcium precursors with n-butyllithium at very low temperatures.

Di-n-butylcalcium is made by reacting the calcium bis(amide)s [Ca{N(SiMe₃)₂}₂]₂ or [Ca{N(SiMe₃)₂}₂·(thf)₂] with n-butyllithium at −83 °C. With one equivalent of n-BuLi, the heteroleptic complex [Ca(nBu){N(SiMe₃)₂}·(thf)₃] forms, and with two equivalents, [Ca(nBu)₂·(thf)₄] is obtained.

 

🔍 What They Found?

Using NMR, crystallography, and DFT studies, the team showed that the compound is real, stable (when cold), and can carry out key reactions like halogen–calcium exchange and deprotonation.

 

🌍 Why It Matters

This opens the door to using calcium, a cheap and abundant metal, in organic synthesis much like magnesium in Grignard chemistry, but with new reactivity possibilities.

 

🧩 Cool Detail

The chemistry was essentially done in a deep freeze: The team had to tame calcium’s hyper-reactive bonds by cooling the reactions down to −83 °C.