Why do we have a beer opener in the lab?

Well, sometimes larger amounts of butyllithium is needed and it would take too much time to get out everything from a “Aldrich sure seal” bottle through the concrete hard septa with a syringe and needle…

n-Butyllithium, abbreviated BuLi or nBuLi is an organolithium reagent used as a strong base (pK a ≈ 50) in organic chemistry and as a initiator for the anionic polymerization of dienes in polymerchemistry. Due to the large difference between the electronegativities of carbon (2.55) and lithium (0.98), the C-Li bond is highly polarized and the BuLi is highly reactive.

Well, okay, but why was the septa and the fancy bottle? Alkyl-lithium compounds are stored under inert gas to prevent loss of activity and for reasons of safety, since they react with everything, from moisture in the air, CO 2 , labcoat, skin, face and everything. n-BuLi is not that bad compared to the sec- and tert-BuLi, but it could also ignite easily and it’s really hard to extinguish, since it will probably react with the extinguisher. It is usually handled using air free techniques to prevent mishaps and serious problems, so if you use BuLi, don’t take off the septa, use a needle and argon gas.

9:30 pm • 12 January 2017 • 196 notes • View comments