Silylcarbene, isomerism

Two indirect routes to silenes, one derived from silylenes and the other from silylcarbenes, are of some generality and importance. Silylenes (e.g., Me3Si—Si—<]) (53) have been derived from the thermolysis of either methoxy or chloro polysilyl compounds. Thermolysis resulted in the elimination of trimethylmethoxy- or trimethylchlorosilane and yielded the silylene, which, based on products of trapping, clearly had rearranged in part to the isomeric silene [Eq. (5)]. Alternatively the silylene Me2Si has... 

All silenes generated so far on the silylcarbene route are reactive intermediates themselves, which were characterized by typical subsequent reactions35 such as isomerization and dimerization or by trapping reactions (see below). However, photolysis of (silyl)diazo compounds in inert matrices at low temperature allowed the isolation and spectroscopic (IR, UV) characterization of several silenes (Scheme 2, Table 3). Irradiation of (dia-zomethyl)silanes 7 at X > 360 nm produced both diazirine 8 and silenes 10, but at shorter wavelength (X > 305 nm) the silenes were produced cleanly from both precursors the... 

An analogous mechanistic scheme (equation 87) has been proposed for the flash vacuum pyrolysis of dimethylsilyl(trimethylsilyl)thioketene148 (256). The pyrolysis of bis(trimethylsilyl)thioketene (257) leads to a more complicated product mixture (equation 88). With 47% conversion, a mixture of trimethylsilylacetylene, 1-trimethylsilyl-1-propyne, bis(trimethylsilyl)acetylene, (trimethylsilyl)thioketene, 2,2,4,4-tetramethyl-2,4-disila-l-thietane and 2,2,4,4-tetramethyl-2,4-disila-l,3-dithietane was obtained. All products can be rationalized, however, by the assumption that carbene 258 undergoes not only a silylcarbene-to-silene rearrangement (as in the preceding two cases) but also isomerization to 2-thiirene and insertion into a methyl-C, H bond. 

The transient silene 352 undergoes, under the photolytic conditions applied for its generation from 353, a fast subsequent isomerization yielding the silaindane 354. The silylcarbene 355 was suggested as short-lived intermediate (equation 93)94. Similar formal insertions of the Si=C bond into the C—H bond of an ortho-me, hy group have been also... 

The complex reaction sequence shown in equation 34 might provide some rationalization. The formation of the silylcarbene 141 is suggested, based on experimental results from related reactions , but there is no evidence for the formation of 141 nor for a silylene intermediate. Thus, the transformation 137 142 might proceed via a dyotropic rearrangement as well. The facile 1,3-methyl shift in 2-trimethylsilylsilenes which interconverts 142 139 is well known from Wiberg -type silenes . 139 (R = i-Bu) is stable in solution at room temperature over days and isomerizes only slowly to 140 (R = t-Bu) which rapidly dimerizes giving a 1,3-disilacyclobutane . 

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