text: Simple, unhindered dialkylboranes are reactive at room temperature towards most alkenes and terminal alkynes but are difficult to prepare in high purity, since they exist in equilibrium with mono- and trialkylboranes. One common way of preparing them is the reduction of dialkylhalogenoboranes with metal hydrides. An important synthetic application using such dialkylboranes, such as diethylborane, is the transmetallation of the organoboron compounds to form organozinc compounds.