Zinc chloride-catalyzed Grignard addition reaction of aromatic nitriles.

In the alkyl addition reaction of aromatic nitriles using Grignard reagents, ketones are formed after hydrolysis. However, this addition reaction is often slow compared to that using reactive organolithium(i) reagents. In this study, we improved the reaction by using zinc(ii)ates, which are generated using Grignard reagents and zinc chloride (ZnCl) as a catalyst.