Talk:Lithium diisopropylamide

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"Organic Chemistry" 6th ed. (2004) by McMurry gives the pKa of LDA to be ~40 instead of ~34, does anyone else have any sources?

Diisopropylamine has a pKa of 35.7 (see The Chemist's Companion). McMurry probably rounded the value up-- not recommended when dealing with logarithms! :D

Lithium hexamethyldisilazide (LHMDS) is a weaker base than LDA, the acid form having a pKA of 26. Hope this helps!

1 Oligomers
2 Please use formulas
3 Mechanistic arrows
4 Kinetic vs thermodynamic bases

[edit] Oligomers

I have made pictures for the oligomer section, when I get the time I will add them to wikipedia.Cadmium

[edit] Please use formulas

Whoever is putting in the nice figures should put in a jargon-free captions with formulas - which molecules are being depicted? Not apparently [LiNiPr2]n, but some analogues or some sort of solvates. The article is about LiNiPr2 or oligomers of this formula, so at least one figure should show this stuff, not its THF adduct. --Smokefoot 01:28, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Smokefoot, I will add a picture of the polymeric LDA solid when I get around to it. I think that as LDA is used oftein in ether solvents that the dimer in THF diagram is more important than the picture of the polymer (LDA under much more rare conditions). I have rearranged the article to make it more clear, I have also added a section explaining why LDA is able to form different enolates to weaker or insoluble bases.Cadmium 21:40, 2 May 2006 (UTC)