Silanones from silenes

The adducts 41 from 1 and ketones or thiobenzophenone undergo interesting photochemical cycloreversion to afford a silanone or silanethione intermediate 42 in addition to silene 43 both of these intermediates are trapped by ethanol, as shown in Eq. (14).68 71 In the reaction with the thiobenzophenone adduct 41 (R = Ph, X = S), the intermediate silene 43 (R = Ph) was detected by Si NMR.71... 

A siloxetane 526 as an intermediate from a [2 + 2] cycloaddition of silene 241 with acetone has been formulated by lshikawa134. It extrudes a silanone equivalent to give the vinyl ether 527. The second regioisomeric silene 242 generated together with 241 by photolysis of 240 undergoes an ene reaction instead (equation 179)134. 

All known silenes react violently with molecular oxygen with the exception of the stable 1-silaallenes which are air-stable. Along with carbonyl compounds the products of the oxidation of silenes are cyclic siloxanes from the corresponding silanone, depending on the reaction conditions3,8,28. For example, when the stable adamantylsilene 150 is... 

The photochemical reactivity goes up with increasing number of methyl groups at the double bond and decreasing ionization potential28. Key intermediates in both the photochemical and the thermal oxidation of silenes 12, 7 and 13 are the siladioxetanes 14. These species are labile even in low-temperature matrices and could not be identified spectroscopically. Evidence for their formation comes from the observed oxidation products such as complexes 15 between silanones and formaldehyde and formylsilanols 16. 

Brook and coworkers have already reported a similar reaction mode in the reaction of silene with oxygen53. In that case the intermediary silanone which arises from the... 

Thus, the silene reaction with ketones represents a formal analogy of the Wittig olefin synthesis. Silanone is believed to be formed, since its trimer and other oligomers are isolated from the final product mixtures. Thermal reactions of the known stable 2-siloxetanes are quite complex, but at least in some cases the expected olefin is formed110,244. 

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