 ;templatestyles src="Chembox/styles.css"/ ;
Chemical compound
Lithium "tert"-butoxide is the metalorganic compound with the formula LiOC(CH3)3. A white solid, it is used as a strong base in organic synthesis. The compound is often depicted as a salt, and it often behaves as such, but it is not ionized in solution. Both octameric and hexameric forms have been characterized by X-ray crystallography
Preparation.
Lithium "tert"-butoxide is commercially available as a solution and as a solid, but it is often generated "in situ" for laboratory use because samples are so sensitive and older samples are often of poor quality. It can be obtained by treating tert-butanol with butyl lithium.
Reactions.
As a strong base, lithium "tert"-butoxide is easily protonated.
Lithium "tert"-butoxide is used to prepare other "tert"-butoxide compounds such as copper(I) t-butoxide and hexa(tert-butoxy)dimolybdenum(III):
2 MoCl3(thf)3 + 6 LiOBu-t → Mo2(OBu-t)6 + 6 LiCl + 6 thf
References.
 ;templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" / ;