Did you realise that over 60% of the papers on organozinc reagents use diethyl zinc as the reagent? The reason is that it is cheap, readily available on scale and, most importantly, is free from metal salts which can affect the progress of many reactions. Thus the chemist who wishes to prepare new organozinc reagents, usually from a Grignard or organolithium species, will be faced with a dilemma; either use the reagent in situ, without removal of the lithium or magnesium salts, or spend time on purification of the organozinc species.

This is particularly important when dealing with asymmetric reactions where presence of a metal salt can drastically reduce the enantiomeric excess..

These issues and how to solve them are related in a recent review from the group of Charette at Montreal, published in Aldrichimica Acta (2009, 42(3), 72-82, which covers applications of these versatile reagents.