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From the following set of compounds, choose the compounds that would be suitable to make organo-lithium and Grignard reagents. Select all that apply.

a) CH₃OH
b) R-X (alkyl halide)
c) R-Mg-X (Grignard reagent)
d) R-Li (organo-lithium)

User Yinan
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Final answer:

In the context of reagent preparation, only alkyl halides (R-X) are suitable for making organo-lithium and Grignard reagents, as they contain a halogen that can be replaced with lithium or magnesium to form the respective reagents.

Step-by-step explanation:

From the given set of compounds, the ones suitable for making organo-lithium and Grignard reagents are alkyl halides (R-X). Alkyl halides contain a halogen atom (fluorine, chlorine, bromine, or iodine) bonded to an alkyl group represented by R, making them suitable precursors for the formation of both organo-lithium and Grignard reagents.

Organo-lithium reagents (R-Li) can theoretically be synthesized from themselves, but in practice, they are typically prepared from alkyl halides. On the other hand, R-Mg-X is already a Grignard reagent, and thus, it is not prepared from another compound in this context. Lastly, CH₃OH (methanol) is not suitable for generating either organo-lithium or Grignard reagents due to its reactivity with these strong bases.

User Damon Baker
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