He prepared CuCl (which he called white muriate of copper) by heating CuCl2 at red heat in the absence of air, causing it to lose half of its combined chlorine followed by removing residual CuCl2 by washing with water.

[9] This application was significant during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when coal gas was widely used for heating and lighting.

Ammoniacal solutions of CuCl react with acetylenes to form the explosive copper(I) acetylide, Cu2C2.

Upon contact with water, copper(I) chloride slowly undergoes disproportionation:[17] In part for this reason, samples in air assume a green coloration.

Its affinity for carbon monoxide in the presence of aluminium chloride is exploited in the COPureSM process.

[20] In the Sandmeyer reaction, the treatment of an arenediazonium salt with CuCl leads to an aryl chloride.

For example, CuCl reacts with methyllithium (CH3Li) to form "Gilman reagents" such as (CH3)2CuLi, which find use in organic synthesis.

Cuprous chloride also catalyzes the dimerization of acetylene to vinylacetylene, once used as a precursor to various polymers such a neoprene.