Digermenes synthesis

We want to use this knowledge to tell us something about R2M=MR2 and RM=MR, about which we know considerably less. Maybe this information will help chemists make digermenes and distan-nenes that will retain their structures in solution or the gas phase. Maybe it will aid in the synthesis of stable triply bonded compounds of silicon and germanium, or hexasilabenzene ... 

The lower heats of formation of silylenes compared with carbenes translate into somewhat lower, albeit similar, reactivity. There is a general lesson here that slowing down the reactions of carbene-like species makes possible processes like dimerization that are more or less impossible for carbenes. We have already seen that slowing down their rearrangements allows the observation of intermolecular reactions of alkylsilylenes not observed for alkylcarbenes. The dimerization of silylenes to disilenes, discovered in the gas phase [36], was employed to brilliant effect by West and coworkers in the condensed phase synthesis of isolable disilenes [37]. While these were not the first disilenes, silylene dimerization opened the way for the preparation of many new molecules, including digermenes from the dimerization of germylenes [38]. 

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