He worked on organic compounds and proposed Zaytsev's rule, which predicts the product composition of an elimination reaction.

[1][2] However, at the urging of his maternal uncle, Zaytsev was allowed to enroll at University of Kazan to study economics.

At this time, Russia was experimenting with the cameral system, meaning that every student graduating in law and economics from a Russian university had to take two years of chemistry.

At this time, Kolbe accepted a call to Leipzig, and Zaytsev, now out of money, returned to Russia.

degree, and, the following year (1869) was appointed as Extraordinary Professor of Chemistry, the junior colleague of another Butlerov student, Vladimir Vasilyevich Markovnikov (1838–1904).

His research at Kazan was primarily concerned with the development of organozinc chemistry and the synthesis of alcohols.

Zaytsev and his students Egor Egorevich Vagner (Georg Wagner, 1849–1903) and Sergei Nikolaevich Reformatskii (1860–1934) extended this reaction to a general synthesis of alcohols using alkylzinc iodides.