Disilenes reactivity

The reactivity of a silylene 103 with isocyanides was probed by Okazaki et a . in 1997. When disilene 102 is heated to 60 C in THF or CfiDf, it dissociates... 

Many of the fundamental reaction patterns of disilenes, except for thermal dissociation into silylenes, have been described in the previous reviews,2-5 but ongoing studies on the reactivity of disilenes continue to reveal a rich and diverse chemistry. 

Disilenes are very reactive toward a variety of unsaturated bonds, such as C=C, C=C, C=N, C=N, C=0, C=S, N=N, and N=0, giving interesting four-membered ring compounds that are otherwise difficult to synthesize.3b Reactions using stable tetraaryl- or dialkyldiaryldisilenes and marginally stable tetra-t-butyldisilene (21), which is generated by photolysis of the corresponding cyclotrisilane, are summarized in Schemes 10 and 11, respectively. Some of them merit further comments. 

Successes in producing reactive intermediates like o-xylylene and carbene and in preparing bimetal lies in high yields using ultrasound led us to attempt to generate West s novel compound, tetramesityldisilene the first example of a stable species with a silicon-silicon double bond(32). We prepared this species in one step and trapped it with methanol(33). The disilene is reactive towards lithium, however, and we have found it very difficult to obtain consistent results. Most often, hexamesitylcyclotrisilane is isolated in very good yield(34). 

The photochemical cleavage of Si-Si bonds of cyclotetrasilanes has been reported to generate several reactive intermediates. For example, Nagai and co-workers reported that silylene and cyclotrisilane are generated during the photolysis of a cyclotetrasilane with a folded structure.73 Shizuka, Nagai, West, and co-workers reported that the photolysis of planar cyclotetrasilanes gives two molecules of disilene.74... 

Recently, Tsutsui and Sakamoto have reported on a lattice-framework disilene 214, whose reactivity may be explained best by a thermal equilibrium to the corresponding silylene 215 (Scheme 31). The lattice-frame-... 

The first examples employed a lithium-terminated polymer chain, utilizing the primary product of the -butyl-lithium-catalyzed polymerization of a masked disilene (see Section 3.11.4.1.2) and a reactive siloxy alkylbromide anchor-derivatized quartz surface, affording the end-grafted polysilane 79, as shown in Scheme 27.191... 

Disilenes have much lower oxidation potentials than olefins , and consequently they are much more reactive toward 02. Typically, disilenes 93 react in solution with triplet oxygen to give 1,2-disiladioxetanes 94 as the major product, accompanied at room temperature by a smaller amount of disilaoxirane 95 (equation 93) °. ... 

The photolysis of cyclic polysilanes results in ring contraction with concomitant extrusion of a silylene fragment. Although the formation of two reactive intermediates potentially complicates mechanisms for product formation, it has provided a useful method for the synthesis of both unstable and stable disilenes... 

Compounds with a Si=Si or Ge=Ge bond (i.e., disilenes and digermenes) can be isolated when the double bond contains bulky substituents. Only a few cycloaddition reactions with diazo compounds are known, and two reaction modes have been observed. One of the paths leads to the formation of disiliranes 184 (242) and digermiranes 185 (243) (Scheme 8.42), probably by ring contraction of an initially formed [3 + 2] cycloaddition product. The other path involves a 1,1-cycloaddition of the diazoalkane to give disilaaziridine 186 (244) and digermaazir-idine 187 (245). This nitrene-like reactivity is rather uncommon although some intramolecular examples are known (see Section 8.6.1). 

The sterically crowded, kinetically stable disilene 122 acts on heating as a source of silylene 123 that exhibits the usual reactivity of silylenes, as... 

These E-Z isomerization studies of disilenes indicate that the n overlap between two 3p orbitals of silicon is sufficiently effective to retain the configuration around the double bond, although the 7r bonding of disilenes is significantly weaker than that of the C=C double bond. Therefore, it is expected that if appropriately substituted disilenes can be generated, regiochemistry as well as diastereochemistry of addition reactions to disilenes can be investigated even with transient reactive disilenes. 

TABLE 2. Absorption maxima of some reactive disilenes... 

Whereas the analogous carbenes easily isomerize wherever possible to compounds containing doubly bonded carbon atoms even under the conditions of matrix isolation, silylenes are almost as stable as the corresponding substances with doubly bonded silicon atoms. For example, methyl- and silylsilylene lie just 4 and 8 kcalmol-1 above silaethene and disilene, whereas the difference between ethene and methylcarbene is as high as 70 kcalmol-1 149-151 As a consequence, silylenes are often key intermediates on the way to other highly reactive silicon compounds discussed above. 

Routes to the reactive species silenes, silylenes and disilenes, and the photochemical changes which they themselves undergo. 

Subsequent studies by Sakurai and coworkers of the photolysis of disilyl-bridged aromatic compound 78, indicated that two interesting (not necessarily independent) processes were occurring, namely elimination of the disilyl group as a disilene, 79, another reactive intermediate of silicon chemistry, and secondly, Si-C homolysis to a diradical 80, which overall underwent a 1,2-silyl shift yielding the isomeric disilyl-bridged compound 8141-42 (Scheme 11). 

The photolysis of silicon-bridged dihydroaromatic compounds has been utilized to prepare reactive organosilicon species such as disilenes. Thus, photolysis of the... 

Some of the reactions given in the sections above are important routes to reactive organosilicon intermediates such as silenes and silylenes, and because of their tendency to dimerize readily, to disilenes, the latter being formed when matrix-isolated silylenes are warmed up. It appears worthwhile to summarize some of the more useful reactions leading to silenes and silylenes, and their subsequent behaviors. The topics of silylenes97,142 and disilenes97,142,143 have recently been reviewed. 

Knowledge concerning the photochemistry of silenes, silylenes or disilenes is somewhat limited, largely because they are usually reactive transient species difficult to handle. However, a number of interesting and important observations have been made which are reported below. 

The photochemistry of organosilicon compounds has been extensively studied, since many types of interesting reactive intermediates such as silylenes, silenes, disilenes and silyl... 

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