Hydrogen Donor Abilities of Silicon Hydrides

The hydrogen abstraction from the Si—H moiety of silanes is fundamentally important not only because it is the method of choice for studying spectroscopically the silyl radicals but also because it is associated with the reduction of organic molecules, process stabilizers and organic modification of silicon surfaces. 

The kinetic data reported in this chapter have been determined either by direct measurements, using for example kinetic EPR spectroscopy and laser flash photolysis techniques or by competitive kinetics like the radical clock methodology (see below). The method for each given rate constant will be indicated as well as the solvent used. An extensive compilation of the kinetics of reaction of Group 14 hydrides (RsSiH, RsGeH and RsSnH) with radicals is available [1]. 

Organosilanes in Radical Chemistry C. Chatgilialoglu 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd ISBN 0-471-49870-X 

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I thank Keith U. Ingold for having introduced me to this subject. When I arrived in Ottawa at the National Research Council of Canada in 1979 for three years postdoctoral work with him, very little was known on the reactivity of silyl radicals. At that time, several papers dealing with kinetics of silyl radicals were published, which allowed the reactivity of silyl radical to be translated into a quantitative base. Special thanks go to David Griller for his collaboration on the initial work on hydrogen donor abilities of silicon hydrides during the late 1980s. 

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