Organosilicon compounds precedents

The preceding volume on The chemistry of organic silicon compounds (Vol. 2) in The Chemistry of Functional Groups series (Z. Rappoport and Y. Apeloig, Eds.) appeared in 1998. It followed an earlier volume with the same title (S. Patai and Z. Rappoport, Eds.) published in 1989 (now referred to as Vol. 1) and an update volume The silicon-heteroatom bond in 1991. The appearance of the present volume only three years after the three parts of Vol. 2 reflects the continuing rapid growth of many sub-fields of organosilicon compounds and their chemistry. 

Previous work (7) provides precedents for the type of reaction required for framework conversion in the synthetic-silicate variation of the route. Likewise, previous work provides precedents for the metal ion and OH group displacement steps (8-10) and for the OR group displacement step (11-13) of both variations of the route. In addition, work has been reported recently (14) on another related route to organosilicon compounds. However, no work, other than that from this laboratory, has been reported that provides a precedent for the full route. 

Under such circumstances it would be difficult to cover all the literature of the last ten years. Rather, topics which, from the viewpoint of the authors of this review, demonstrate this fruitful period will be selected and discussed. Thus, firstly, new developments in NMR techniques will be discussed in relation to Si NMR. Discussion of the Si NMR spectra of novel and hypervalent organosilicon compounds will follow. New data on Si NMR parameters are preceded by the recent development in the theory of Si NMR. In most of the reviews on NMR, this section will come first. We have inverted this order because the purpose of this review is not to cover all the literature, but to bring to the attention of organosilicon chemists the most crucial points of recent Si NMR spectroscopy. The development of solid-state Si NMR will be described in a separate section. We deliberately make this section independent since the use of solid-state Si NMR is increasing particularly rapidly. This tendency will no doubt be accelerated owing to the relevance of silicon chemistry to materials science. 

The chemistry of organic silicon compounds is one of the fastest growing fields in organic chemistry. In this subject, theory often precedes and sometimes even directs experimental work and this is reflected in a comprehensive and detailed theoretical chapter. Several exciting new developments of organosilicon chemistry of the last decade have been reviewed, such as multiple bonds to silicon. 

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