Reactions with silylenes

III. YLIDE AND SMALL-RING FORMATIONS BY SILYLENE REACTIONS WITH HETEROATOMS AND CUMULENES... 

With the stable donor adducts of silylene complexes, valuable model compounds are now available for reactive intermediates which otherwise cannot be observed directly. For example, a side reaction occurring in the hydrosilation process [61 -63], is the dehydrogenative coupling of silanes to disilanes. This reaction could be explained in terms of a silylene transfer reaction with a coordinated silylene as the key intermediate. 

Stable silylene complexes with halogen substituents are a useful starting material for further displacement reactions. Starting from 7 and 11, the Si complexes 22-24 are accessible in high yield. However, the intermediate dichlorosilylene complex... 

Developments in the synthesis and characterization of stable silylenes (RiSi ) open a new route for the generation of silyl radicals. For example, dialkylsilylene 2 is monomeric and stable at 0 °C, whereas N-heterocyclic silylene 3 is stable at room temperature under anaerobic conditions. The reactions of silylene 3 with a variety of free radicals have been studied by product characterization, EPR spectroscopy, and DFT calculations (Reaction 3). EPR studies have shown the formation of several radical adducts 4, which represent a new type of neutral silyl radicals stabilized by delocalization. The products obtained by addition of 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-l-piperidinyloxy (TEMPO) to silylenes 2 and 3 has been studied in some detail. ... 

This silylene formation from 27 under mild conditions permits the synthesis of a variety of interesting carbo- and heterocycles, most of which are new types of compounds. The results are summarized in Schemes 5 and 6. The reactions with benzene and naphthalene represent the first examples of [2+1] cycloadditions of a silylene with aromatic C=C double bonds.59 623 The reactions with carbon disulfide and isocyanide (Scheme 6) are also of great interest because of their unusual reaction patterns.62b... 

The discovery that soluble high molecular weight polysilanes may be prepared by the reductive coupling of dichlorodialkylsilanes by alkali metals (1,2) has led to considerable work on the properties of this interesting class of polymers (3,4,5). The preparation of the polymers leaves much to be desired as frequently the high polymer is only a minor product. Mechanistic studies of the reaction with a view to improving the relevant yields have been few (6). The major ones by Zeigler (7,8,9) showed that a silylene diradical was not involved in the reaction, and stressed the importance of polymer solvent interactions. 

The formation of silaneselone 57 was evidenced by the trapping reaction with mesitonitrile oxide leading to the corresponding cycloadduct 58 and was also supported by the observation of a remarkably downfield 29Si chemical shift (8Si = 174) indicative of the Si=Se double bond of 57. Although this direct selenation of silylene 55 with an equimolar amount of selenium was not reproducible, the use of excess amount of elemental selenium resulted in the formation of a new cyclic diselenide, diselenasilirane 59, as a stable compound (8Si = -44 and... 

Some cycloaddition reactions of 4 are summarized in Scheme 1. This shows that silylene 4 undergoes reactions with nitriles [14], phosphaalkynes [15], silyl azides [16], diazabutadienes [17], 2,2 -bipyridyl and its derivatives [18, 19], a-ketoimines [19], and pyridine-2-aldimines [19]. 

After a decade of research the basic principles in the chemistry of decamethylsilicocene (1) seem to be understood. This compound shows the reactivity of a nucleophilic silylene due to the fact that the Tt-bonded pentamethylcyclopentadienyl ligands are easily transferred to a-bonded substituents during the reaction. The steric requirements of these substituents permit reactions with bulky substrates. The migratory aptitude and the leaving-group character of the pentamethylcyclopentadienyl groups... 

Tokitoh et al. have synthesized a sterically hindered disilene TbtMesSiSiMesTbt 210 that is kinetically stable but thermally labile, thus providing the corresponding silylene TbtMesSi 211, whose reaction with isocyanides bearing bulky substituents has resulted in the formation of the first stable silylene isocyanide complexes TbtMesSiCNR (212, R = Tbt 213, R = Mes ) (Scheme 30).327... 

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