[Stalin]

Hi everyone.

This is my first post so I apologize in advance if this is the wrong forum (moderators: feel free to move it if you believe there is a more appropriate place)

Basically, I want to make a calcium amino acid chelate, specifically calcium bisglycinate, using calcium carbonate and glycine.
The reaction is: glycine + CaCO3 --> Ca(gly)2 + CO2 + H2O

Literature suggests that the chelate product is thermodynamically favored, but in reality it proceeds (in an aqueous solution) so slowly it is completely impractical. Other literature has suggested it will proceed at a reasonable rate if a reaction aid is used, but unfortunately none is specifically listed.

To speed things up by increasing the amount of soluble calcium, I have tried some weak acids (acetic, ascorbic, boric) hoping that the following catalytic type reactions would occur:

CaCO3 + 2HA --> Ca(A)2 + CO2 + H2O
2Gly + Ca(A)2 --> Ca(Gly)2 + 2HA

I get CO2 bubbles from the first reaction, but then unfortunately the activity stops  and glycine appears unable to displace the weak acid so it appears to be a bit of a dead end.

Could anyone please suggest a reaction aid/catalyst, or perhaps an alternate method of synthesizing calcium glycinate chelate? (I'm not actually a chemist either so please forgive my question if it is stupid  )

Thanks much