Disilanes, aromatic, silenes from

The 1,3-silyl shift in aryl disilanes is suppressed when the aromatic ring is ortho-substituted144. An attempted silylene synthesis from 1,3-dimesitylhexamethyltrisilane 259, however, led to low yields of silylene trapping products (ca 30% generation of Me2S ). The major pathway is the homolytic cleavage of the trisilane, followed by disproportionation of the radicals 260 and 261 to the silene 262 and the disilane 263 (equation 65). 

The much studied photochemistry of aryldisilanes carried out in earlier years has been reviewed51,52. Cleavage of the silicon-silicon bond of the disilyl moiety is always involved, but various other reactions have been observed depending on the structure of the disilane and the conditions employed. Thus cleavage to a pair of silyl radicals, path a of Scheme 15, is normally observed, and their subsequent disproportionation to a silene and silane, path b, is often observed. There is evidence that the formation of this latter pair of compounds may also occur by a concerted process directly from the photoex-cited aryldisilane (path c). Probably the most common photoreaction is a 1,3-silyl shift onto the aromatic ring to form a silatriene, 105, path d, which may proceed via radical recombination52. A very minor process, observed occasionally, is the extrusion of a silylene from the molecule (path e), as shown in Scheme 15. 

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See also in sourсe #XX -- [ ]

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