Volume 2 Issue 8, August 2007

Equipment set-up for addition of the lithium in the ammonia-free Birch Reduction. Strips of lithium are removed from pentane using tweezers and cut into small portions with scissors while holding them above the mouth of the neck of the flask (directly underneath a funnel attached to an argon line), allowing them to fall into the reaction vessel as they are cut. Photograph by Karl Harrison and published in the protocol by Donohoe and Thomas.