Si-H containing initiator

B. Cationic Polymerization with Si-H Containing Initiator/Me3Al Initiating Systems... 

Research described in this section concerns effects of solvent polarity, temperature, monomer and initiator concentration on the polymerization of a-methylstyrene with Si-H containing initiator/Me3Al system for the synthesis of HSi-PaMeSt and of desirable molecular weight. 

Si-H containing functional initiators have been obtained by reduction with LAH of the corresponding Si-Cl containing compounds. Conditions have been developed under which the benzylic chloride remains unchanged while the Si-Cl bond is converted to Si-H (for experimental details see Sect. H.C.). The initiators obtained are shown in Table 1. 

This section concerns the synthesis of polyisobutylenes (PIB) bearing a Si-H head-group (HSi-PIB) by the use of Si-H containing functional initiator in conjunction with Me3Al coinitiator. First the effect of reaction conditions on the rate and molecular weight have been investigated and subsequently a H1 NMR method for the quantitative characterization of Si-H groups in HSi-PIB was developed. 

Organic-silica hybrid materials have been used for multi-photon microfabrication. These include the acrylate-functionalized oligosiloxanes known as ORMOCERs, which have been polymerized by radical processes using conventional IP radical iniatitors, such as c.2 [221,234]. Commercial poly(dimethylsiloxane)-based resists containing vinyl and Si-H functionalities use two different 2PA-induced processes hydrosilylation catalyzed by the photodecomposition products of Cp PtMes (Cp = ti -methylcyclopentadienyl) and radical initiation by c.4 (Fig. 13) [235]. The former process was complicated by thermally-induced polymerization. 

In the silylative coupling reactions of olefins and dienes with vinylsubsti-tuted silanes, ruthenium catalysts, containing initially or generating in situ Ru-H/Ru-Si bonds, catalyze polycondensation of divinylsubstituted silicon compounds to yield unsaturated silylene (siloxylene, silazanylene)-vinyl-ene-alkenylene (arylene) products (Eq. 112). For recent results see Refs. [177, 178] and for reviews see Refs. [6,7,117,118]. 

Another novel class of silicon-based initiators has been described [44]. Compounds containing Si—H bond in the presence of platinum catalysts (Ptl2, H->PtBr6, PtCl2(C6HsCN)2) are effective initiators of cationic polymerization of cyclic ethers. 

The term hydrosilation (or hydrosilylation) refers to the addition of a molecule containing a Si-H bond across the multiple bond of a substrate, usually an alkene, alkyne, or carbonyl compound (equation 1). The reaction can be promoted by UV-light, radiation (y- and X rays), radical initiators, Lewis acids, nucleophiles, or, most importantly, transition metal catalysts. Hydrosilation is related to the important processes of hydrogenation (see Hydrogenation) and hydroboration (see Hydroboration), all of which belong to the general reaction class of hydroelementation. 

---