Silicon alkanes-metals

Chlorine Ammonia, acetylene, alcohols, alkanes, benzene, butadiene, carbon disulflde, dibutyl phthalate, ethers, fluorine, glycerol, hydrocarbons, hydrogen, sodium carbide, flnely divided metals, metal acetylides and carbides, nitrogen compounds, nonmetals, nonmetal hydrides, phosphorus compounds, polychlorobi-phenyl, silicones, steel, sulfldes, synthetic rubber, turpentine... 

Consequently, in the early work with hydridosilicon derivatives, diethyl ether was normally used in the case of very volatile products, dimethyl ether offered some practical advantages. It was tacitly assumed that a polar solvent was essential in order to dissolve, at least partly, the transition-metal carbonyl derivative. More recently, however, it has become clear that alkanes, although nonpolar, provide a very suitable reaction medium, and can be used in cases where ethers, for example, are inimical to the products (8, 32, 306, 310). The hydrocarbon, besides acting as a diluent for the silicon halide, seems to assist the separation of alkali halide from the surface of the reacting transition-metal carbonyl salt. 

Carbon-Hydrogen Bond Insertion In the early 1960s the activation of alkanes by metal systems was realized from the related development of oxidative addition reactions " " in which low-valent metal complexes inserted into carbon-heteroatom, silicon-hydrogen, and hydrogen-hydrogen bonds. The direct oxidative addition of metals into C-H bonds was found in the cyclometallation reaction [Eq. (6.61)].The reverse process of oxidative addition is called reductive elimination, which involves the same hypercoordinate carbon species. 

Zeolites are materials generally composed of silicon, aluminium, oxygen and a metal cation or proton. They have a multitude of commercial uses including catalysis and separation (e.g. they are used in oil refining to separate linear and branched alkanes). Many of these important properties are a consequence of the presence within the zeolite of channels of molecular dimensions. It is therefore natural that molecular modelling techniques should be used to investigate the intrinsic properties of such materials and the way in which they interact with adsorbates. 

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