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	62	54% 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	492	94% 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	215	86% say buy it
AgNO3		made bought	71	88% say buy it
Alkyne Hydration Catalyst	Grotjahn, D.B and Lev D. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2004, 126, 12232	made bought	44	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	99	82% 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	54	68% say buy it
Comins Reagent	Comins DL, Dehghani A. Tetrahedron Letters 33 (42): 6299-6302 Oct 13 1992.	made bought	125	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	11	63% say make it
Danishefsky's Diene	Danishefsky, S. et al, J.A.C.S, 1974, 96, 7807; 1978, 100, 6536.	made bought	132	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	295	77% say make it
Dibutylboron Triflate	Evans procedure; JACS 1981 103 3099	made bought	50	70% 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	296	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	34	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	167	93% say make it
Iminoiodinanes		made bought	1	100% say make it
LHMDS	Rathke, M.W. OSC 1988, 6, 598.	made bought	283	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	57	75% say buy it
Lindlar catalyst	Helv. Chim. Acta, 1952, 35, 446-50	made bought	110	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	41	95% say make it
MOM-Cl	Amato, J.S.; Karady, S.; Sletzinger, M.; Weinstock, L.M. Synthesis, 1979, 12, 970-971.	made bought	158	79% say buy it
Meldrum acid		made bought	20	90% say buy it
N-Benzylhydroxylamine hydrochloride	Coskun, N.; Parlar, A. Synthetic Communications, 2005, 35(18), 2445-2451	made bought	28	92% say buy it
Pd(PPh3)4		made bought	83	66% 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	252	75% say buy it
Potassium t-butoxide	Johnson, W.S.; Schneider, W.P. Org. Synth. Coll. Vol. 1963, 4, 132. Link	made bought	146	94% say buy it
Pyridine Tetrahydroborato Zinc	Zeynizadeh, B.; Faraji, F. Bull. Korean Chem. Soc., 2003, 24(4).	made bought	9	77% say make it
Pyridinium Chlorochromate	Corey, E.J. and Suggs, W., Tetrahedron Letters, 31, p. 2647-2650, 1975	made bought	190	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	94	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	171	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	230	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	75	97% say buy it
TMS diazomethane	Organic Syntheses Collected Volume, Volume 8, page 612	made bought	28	89% say buy it
TMSOTf	Goundry, W.R.F. Syn. Lett., 2003, 12, 1940-1941.	made bought	125	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	297	60% say buy it
Tris(dibenzylidene)dipalladium(0)		made bought	104	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	161	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	202	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	93	73% say make it
allyl grignard		made bought	150	69% say buy it
anhydrous HCl		made bought	67	76% 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	91	63% say buy it
tributyltinhydride	made by reduction of Bu3SnCl with NaBH4	made bought	138	90% say buy it
vinylmagnesium bromide		made bought	70	70% say buy it