A highly reactive, explosive yellow gas used in organic chemistry laboratories to methylate organic compounds by adding a methyl group (-CH₃).
From 'diazo-' + 'methane' (the simplest hydrocarbon, CH₄). Identified in the early 1900s by German chemist Albrecht Schlenk.
Diazomethane is so volatile that chemists prepare it fresh in the lab each day and use it immediately—it's famously explosive, yet so useful for synthesis that researchers still handle this chemical terrorist despite the danger.
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