Dehydrogenative silylation, arenes

A very attractive method for the dehydrogenative silylation of arenes via the C-H bond cleavage has been recently reported by Kakiuchi et al. [15]. The reaction of aryloxazolines with trialkylsilanes (mostly triethylsilane) catalyzed by Ru complexes results in the formation of ortho-silylated aryloxazolines in good-to-excellent yields (Eq. 7). 

A similar silylation reaction of benzene with triethylsilane also took place under photoirradiation conditions [88]. Lower catalyst loading improves the selectivity of the corresponding silylbenzene (Eq. 43). This catalyst system can also be applied to the dehydrogenative silylation of arene with hexaorganodis-ilane. 

SiH-functional poly(silylated) aromatic hydrocarbons are important starting materials for the preparation of arene-bridged polysilanes through thermal or catalytic dehydrogenative coupling reactions. 

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