The investigation found that the reported experimentally used precursors AlCl3, AlCl3. Cp2TiCl2 reacts readily to the first step, but the second may be partially reversible. SbCl3 and Ph3SbCl2 are borderline cases; all steps are similar and spontaneous, but reversibility might pose a problem. SnCl4 was found to be unsuitable as it is near equilibrium. Zn was found to be an interesting case. While it is possible to prepare zincosilicates from ZnEt2, it is not feasible to use ZnCl2. Moreover, the equilibrium is shifted towards ZnCl2, and the affinity of Zn for Cl -is so high that we predict that once a source of Cl -, such as SnMe3Cl, is introduced, even zincosilicate structures prepared from ZnEt2 will inevitably dissolve back to CUBE and ZnCl2.