Silicon oxide, reactive intermediates

In the course of this development, knowledge about low valent (in the sense of formal low oxidation states) reactive intermediates has significantly increased [26-30]. On the basis of numerous direct observations of silylenes (silanediyles), e.g., by matrix isolation techniques, the physical data and reactivities of these intermediates are now precisely known [31], The number of kinetic studies and theoretical articles on reactive intermediates of silicon is still continuously growing... 

Ozone is a god target reagent for microreactor applications since it is toxic, difficult to handle and very reactive. A silicon-etched 16-channel (600 (tm x 300 pm x 22.7 mm) microreactor covered with Plexiglas was used for oxidation of 1-decene into nonanal with quantitative conversion and selectivity [20]. This reaction proceeds in fact through the formation of the very reactive intermediate ozonide, which formally results from [3 + 2] addition of O3 to the C=C bond. A consecutive reduction step with P(OEt)3-EtOAc is required to yield the aldehyde. The reaction time is as short as 0.32 s. From the published data, a daily production of ca. 1600 g of nonanal per day may be obtained, which is well suited for preparation in fine chemistry. 

To develop new methods for organic synthesis, Woerpel and coworkers exploited the inherent reactivity of di -fc/ f-butylsilacyclopropanes to create new carbon-carbon bonds in a stereoselective fashion (Scheme 7.7).62 They discovered that transition metal salts catalyze the insertion of carbonyl compounds into the strained carbon-silicon bond to form oxasilacyclopentanes. The regioselectivity of insertion could be controlled by the identity of the catalyst. Copper promoted the insertion of croto-naldehyde into the more substituted C-Si bond of 52 to afford oxasilacyclopentane 53,63 whereas zinc catalyzed the insertion of butyraldehyde into the less substituted bond of 52 to provide the complementary product, 54.64 Oxasilacyclopentanes (e.g., 55) could be transformed into useful synthetic intermediates through oxidation of the C-Si bond,65 66 which provided diol 56 with three contiguous stereocenters. 

The tetracoordinate silicon cation is a rather common species in solution. It may be generated by heterolytic cleavage of a bond from silicon to a reactive ligand, as a result of interaction of the silicon center with an uncharged nucleophile like amine, imine, phosphine, phosphine oxide, and amide. Since these nucleophiles are also known to be effective catalysts for many displacements at silicon including important silylation processes (86,89,235-238), the cations of tetracoordinate silicon have received attention as possible intermediates in these reactions according to Eq. (40) (78,235,239-243). 

Evidence that the 1Sn2 reaction at silicon does indeed go through a pentacovalent intermediate comes from the silicon analogue of the migration step in hydroboration-oxidation. Treatment of reactive organosilanes (that is, those with at least one heteroatom—F, OR, NR2—attached to silicon to encourage nucleophilic attack of hydroperoxide at silicon)... 

The sol gel chemistry of sihcon alkoxides is much simpler (see Silicon Inorganic Chemistry)P Si is fourfold coordinated (N = z = 4,) in the precursor as well as in the oxide so that coordination expansion does not occur. The electronegativity of Si is rather high compared to transition metals. Silicon alkoxides are therefore not very sensitive toward hydrolysis. Their reactivity decreases when the size of the alkoxy groups increases. This is mainly due to steric hindrance, which prevents the formation of hypervalent sihcon intermediates (see Hypervalent Compounds). Silicon alkoxides, Si(OR)4, are always monomeric. Heterometallic alkoxides have never been obtained via the reaction of a sihcon alkoxide with another alkoxide. Silicon alkoxides have to be prehydrolyzed before Si T M bonds can be formed. 

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