Silylene-silene rearrangements, isomerism

A much explored pathway to simple silenes involves the thermolysis of silacyclobutanes at 400-700°C, the original Gusel nikov-Flowers (155) route. Such temperatures are not readily conducive to the isolation and study of reactive species such as silenes except under special conditions, and flash thermolysis, or low pressure thermolysis, coupled with use of liquid nitrogen or argon traps has frequently been employed if study of the physical properties is desired. Under these high temperature conditions rearrangements of simple silenes to the isomeric silylenes have been observed which can lead to complications in the interpretation of results (53,65). Occasionally phenyl-substituted silacyclobutanes have been photolyzed at 254 nm to yield silenes (113) as has dimethylsilacyclobutane in the vapor phase (147 nm) (162). 

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... 

Rearrangements of disilanes to a-silylsilenes are well established and are involved in the exchange of substituents between a silylene center and the adjacent silicon.Pulsed flash pyrolysis of acetylenic disilane (41) gave rise to the acetylenic silene (42), which subsequently rearranged to the cyclic silylene, 1-silacyclopropenylidene (43). Irradiation of the cyclic silylene resulted in the isomerization to the isomeric 42, which itself could be photochemically converted into the allenic silylene (44). Both 42 and 43 also were reported to isomerize on photolysis to the unusual (45), which was characterized spectroscopically (Scheme 14.24). 

The mechanisms proposed by Caspar and coworkers in their approach to the problem have a common point, the formation of the intermediate 9. This silylene then undergoes two prototropic rearrangements initial isomerization to a silene, the 2//-silole (11), followed by a second to give the 1H-silole (2)19 (equation 3). 

Evidence for additional silene-to-silylene isomerizations on simple systems is now available. Thus the pyrolysis of a silabicyclo[2.2.2]octadiene precursor for 1-chlorosil-ene229 produces a mixture of matrix-isolated 1-chlorosilene and chloromethylsilylene. In this instance the thermal rearrangement of the silene to the silylene is probably facilitated by the increased exothermicity of the reaction, since halogenated silylenes are particularly stable (equation 95). 

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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