Sodium diethyldithiocarbamate

Sodium diethyldithiocarbamate is the chemical compound with the formula NaS2CN(C2H5)2. This salt is obtained by treating carbon disulfide with diethylamine in the presence of sodium hydroxide. Many dithiocarbamates can be prepared similarly from secondary amines and carbon disulfide. They are used as chelating agents for transition metal ions and as building blocks in the organic synthesis of herbicides and vulcanization reagents.

Oxidation to thiuram disulfide
Oxidation of sodium diethyldithiocarbamate gives the disulfide, also called a thiuram disulfide (Et = ethyl):
 * 2 NaS2CNEt2 +  I2   &rarr;    Et2NC(S)S-SC(S)NEt2  +  2 NaI

This disulfide is marketed under the labels Antabuse and Disulfiram, as anti-alcoholism drug.

Other reactions
Chlorination of the above-mentioned thiuram disulfide affords the thiocarbamoyl chloride.

Spin trapping of nitric oxide radicals
Complexes of Dithiocarbamates with iron provide one of the very few methods to study the formation of nitric oxide (NO) radicals in biological materials. Although the lifetime of NO in tissues is too short to allow detection of this radical itself, NO readily binds to iron-dithiocarbamate complexes. The resulting mono-nitrosyl-iron complex (MNIC) is stable, and may be detected with Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) spectroscopy.