Ethylmagnesium bromide

Ethylmagnesium bromide is a Grignard reagent with formula, often abbreviated to, where Et is ethyl group. It is widely used in the laboratory synthesis of organic compounds.

Reactions

Apart from acting as the synthetic equivalent of an ethyl anion synthon for nucleophilic addition, ethylmagnesium bromide may be used as a strong base to deprotonate various substrates such as alkynes:
In this application, ethylmagnesium bromide has been supplanted by the wide availability of organolithium reagents.

Preparation

Ethylmagnesium bromide is commercially available, usually as a solution in diethyl ether or tetrahydrofuran. It may be prepared in the normal manner of Grignard reagents — by reacting bromoethane with magnesium in diethyl ether: