The Tour of Collective Wisdom presents:
Should you buy it from a commercial supplier, or make it yourself?

Some reagents offered by chemical suppliers can be prepared easily in the lab, sometimes in higher quality, or at much lower cost. Other reagents are difficult or time-consuming to prepare, and time and effort are saved if these are purchased from a supplier instead. There is some difference on opinion on which reagents fall into these categories, as reflected in the table.

Reagent	Reference	Should this reagent be...	Number of responses
(+) or (–)-(Ipc)2BOMe for Brown allylations/crotylations	Jadhay, Prabhakar K.; Bhat, Krishna S.; Perumal, P. Thirumalai; Brown, Herbert C. Journal of Organic Chemistry, 1986, 51(4), 432-439.	made bought	63	53% say make it
LDA LiN(iPr)2	De Nicola, Antoinette; Einhorn, Jacques; Luche, Jean Louis. Journal of Chemical Research, Synopses, 1991, 10,278.	made bought	499	94% say make it
1,8-diaminonaphthalene		made bought	3	66% say buy it
1-acetoxybutadiene		made bought	2	100% say make it
AD mix alpha and beta	Sharpless, K. B.; Amberg, W.; Bennani, Y. L.; Crispino, G. A.; Hartung, J.; Jeong, K.-S.; Kwong, H.-L.; Morikawa, K.; Wang, Z.-M.; Xu, D.; Zhang, X.-L. J. Org. Chem. 1992, 57, 2768.	made bought	217	87% say buy it
AgNO3		made bought	75	89% say buy it
Alkyne Hydration Catalyst	Grotjahn, D.B and Lev D. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2004, 126, 12232	made bought	45	95% say buy it
BOM-Cl (benzyloxymethyl chloride)	Connor, D: S.; Klein, G.W.; Taylor, G. N. Org. Synth. Coll. Vol. VI, 101-103.	made bought	101	83% say buy it
Boronic acids	Hall, Dennis G.,ed. Boronic Acids. WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, 2005. ISBN 3-527-30991-8	made bought	56	66% say buy it
Comins Reagent	Comins DL, Dehghani A. Tetrahedron Letters 33 (42): 6299-6302 Oct 13 1992.	made bought	126	88% say buy it
Copper(I)bromide - dimethylsulfide complex	House, H. O.;Chu, C.-Y.;Wilkins, J. M.; Umen, M. J., J. Org. Chem. 1075, 40, 1460.	made bought	13	69% say make it
Danishefsky's Diene	Danishefsky, S. et al, J.A.C.S, 1974, 96, 7807; 1978, 100, 6536.	made bought	136	70% say make it
Dess-Martin Periodinane	Dess, DB; Martin, J.C. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1991 113, 7277-7287; Boeckman, Jr. Robert K.; Shao, Pengchen; Mullins, Joseph J. Organic Syntheses, Vol. 77, 141.	made bought	299	77% say make it
Dibutylboron Triflate	Evans procedure; JACS 1981 103 3099	made bought	52	71% say make it
Grignard Reagents	Methylmagnesium Bromide Herman G. Richey Jr., The Pennsylvania State University Encyclopedia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis Copyright 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd DOI: 10.1002/047084289X.rm206	made bought	301	75% say make it
HClO4 SiO2		made bought	10	90% say make it
Hydroquinone	Bianchi, D.; D'Aloisio, R.; Bortolo, R.; Ricci, M. Applied Catalysis, A: General, 2007, 327(2), 295-299	made bought	36	91% say buy it
IBX	Alex G. Fallis, University of Ottawa Pierre E. Tessier, University of Ottawa Encyclopedia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis Copyright 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd DOI: 10.1002/047084289X.rn0021 Article Onlie Posting Date:April 15, 2003	made bought	171	93% say make it
Iminoiodinanes		made bought	1	100% say make it
LHMDS	Rathke, M.W. OSC 1988, 6, 598.	made bought	288	67% say buy it
LiOtBu	Chisholm, Malcom H.; Drake, Simon R.; Naiini, Ahmad A.; Streib, William E. Polyhedron, 1991, 10(8), 805-810.	made bought	58	75% say buy it
Lindlar catalyst	Helv. Chim. Acta, 1952, 35, 446-50	made bought	113	94% say buy it
Lithium tetramethylpipiradine	Mike Campbell, University of Waterloo (Original Commentary) Victor Snieckus, University of Waterloo (Orignal Commentary) Ellen W. Baxter, Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development, LLC Encyclopledia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis Copyright 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd DOI: 10.1002/047084289X.r1143.pub2 Article Online Posting Date: March 14, 2008	made bought	43	93% say make it
MOM-Cl	Amato, J.S.; Karady, S.; Sletzinger, M.; Weinstock, L.M. Synthesis, 1979, 12, 970-971.	made bought	162	80% say buy it
Meldrum acid		made bought	21	85% say buy it
N-Benzylhydroxylamine hydrochloride	Coskun, N.; Parlar, A. Synthetic Communications, 2005, 35(18), 2445-2451	made bought	30	93% say buy it
Pd2(dba)3	Ukai, T; Kawazura, H.; Ishii, Y.; Bonnet, J. J.; Ibers, J. A. J. Organomet. Chem. 1974, 65, 253-266.	made bought	257	75% say buy it
Potassium t-butoxide	Johnson, W.S.; Schneider, W.P. Org. Synth. Coll. Vol. 1963, 4, 132. Link	made bought	153	94% say buy it
Pyridine Tetrahydroborato Zinc	Zeynizadeh, B.; Faraji, F. Bull. Korean Chem. Soc., 2003, 24(4).	made bought	10	70% say make it
Pyridinium Chlorochromate	Corey, E.J. and Suggs, W., Tetrahedron Letters, 31, p. 2647-2650, 1975	made bought	194	86% say buy it
Raney Nickel	Tietze, L.-F.; Eicher, T. Reactions and Syntheses in the Organic Chemistry Lab 1989, 71-72, University Science Books	made bought	97	84% say buy it
Schwartz Reagent		made bought	1	100% say make it
Shi Catalyst	Tu, Y.; Frohn, M.; Wang, Z.-X.; Shi Y. Org. Synth. 2003, 80, 1.	made bought	10	90% say make it
SmI2	Girard, P.; Namy, J.L.; Kagan, H.B. JACS 1980, 102, 2693.	made bought	172	74% say make it
Sodium methoxide/ethoxide	Chandran, K.; Nithya, R.; Sankaran, K.; Goplan, A.; Ganesan, V. Bull. Mater. Sci., 2006, 29(2), 173-179.	made bought	234	73% say make it
Stryker's Reagent	Lee, D.; Yun, J. Tetrahedron Letters, 2005, 46(12), 2037-2039.	made bought	18	72% say make it
TEA	Khedkar, V.; Tillack, A.; Benisch, C.; Melder, J.; Beller, M. Journal of Molecular Catalysis A: Chemical, 2005, 241(1-2), 175-183.	made bought	82	97% say buy it
TMS diazomethane	Organic Syntheses Collected Volume, Volume 8, page 612	made bought	29	89% say buy it
TMSOTf	Goundry, W.R.F. Syn. Lett., 2003, 12, 1940-1941.	made bought	129	92% say buy it
TPAP	J. Chem. Soc. Chem. Commun. 1987, 1625-1627	made bought	171	91% say buy it
Tetrakistriphenylphosphine palladium Pd(PPh3)4	Coulson, D. Inorg. Synth 1972, 13, 121.	made bought	304	60% say buy it
Tris(dibenzylidene)dipalladium(0)		made bought	105	85% say buy it
Wilkinson's Catalyst Rh(PPh3)3Cl	J.A. Osborn, F.H. Jardine, G. Wilkinson and J.F. Young. J. Chem. Soc., A (1966) p. 1711.	made bought	164	86% say buy it
Wittig Reagents	Corbridge, D.E.C. Phosphorus: An Outline of its Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Technology. Amsterdam: Elsevier 5th ed. ISBN 0-444-89307-5	made bought	205	84% say make it
all analogs of the CBS (oxazaborolidines) reagent	Mathre, D.J.; Shinkai, I.; Zaidlewicz, M.; Krzemi, M. Encyclopedia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis, Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Link	made bought	94	72% say make it
allyl grignard		made bought	151	68% say buy it
anhydrous HCl		made bought	70	77% say make it
beaucage reagent	Marchan, V.; Gilbert, M.; Messeguer, A.; Pedroso, E.; Grandas, A. Synthesis, 1999, 1, 43-45.	made bought	15	86% say buy it
methyl CBS (oxazaborolidine)	Organic Syntheses, Coll. Vol. 9, p.676; Vol. 74, p.50	made bought	92	64% say buy it
tributyltinhydride	made by reduction of Bu3SnCl with NaBH4	made bought	142	90% say buy it
vinylmagnesium bromide		made bought	74	70% say buy it
vinylmagnesium bromide		made bought	1	100% say make it