Are Si-C bonds formed in the environment and/or in technical microbiological systems?

Organosiloxanes are industrially produced worldwide in millions of tons per annum and are widely used by industry, professionals, and consumers. Some of these compounds are PBT (persistent, biaccumulative and toxic) or vPvB (very persistent and very bioaccumulative). If organosiloxanes react at all in the environment, Si-O bonds are hydrolyzed or Si-C bonds are oxidatively cleaved, to result finally in silica and carbon dioxide. In strong contrast and very unexpectedly, recently formation of new Si-CH3 bonds from siloxanes and methane by the action of microorganisms under mild ambient conditions was proposed (in landfills or digesters) and even reported (in a biotrickling filter, 30 °C). This is very surprising in view of the harsh conditions required in industrial Si-CH3 synthesis. Here, we scrutinized the pertinent papers, with the result that evidence put forward for Si-C bond formation from siloxanes and methane in technical microbiological systems is invalid, suggesting such reactions will not occur in the environment where they are even less favored by conditions. The claim of such reactions followed from erroneous calculations and misinterpretation of experimental results. We propose an alternative explanation of the experimental observations, i.e., the putative observation of such reactions was presumably due to confusion of two compounds, hexamethyldisiloxane and dimethylsilanediol, that elute at similar retention times from standard GC columns.

Visible Light Thiyl Radical-Mediated Desilylation of Arylsilanes

A straightforward, visible-light triggered desilylation of arylsilanes by thiyl radicals is presented. Silyl groups are often used to block a reactive position in multi-step organic synthesis, for which a mild cleavage at a late-stage will provide new possibilities and disconnection routes by C_Ar -Si cleavage/deprotection. In this work, commercially available and cheap disulfides are employed for the first time in this type of C(sp² )-Si bond cleavage reactions. Thus, upon irradiation with visible-light, homolytic cleavage of the disulfide give rise to the corresponding thiyl radical that allows for a radical chain mechanism. This methodology represents a mild, fast and simple approach suitable for a broad variety of simply substituted arylsilanes. Moreover, the procedure could be easily extended to natural products and therapeutic derivatives, showing its robustness and synthetic application potential.

Protodesilylation of Arylsilanes by Visible-Light Photocatalysis

The first visible-light-mediated photocatalytic, metal- and base-free protodesilylation of arylsilanes is presented. The C(sp²)-Si bond cleavage process is catalyzed by a 5 mol % loading of a commercially available acridinium salt upon blue-light irradiation. Two simple approaches have been identified employing either aerobic or hydrogen atom transfer cocatalytic conditions, which enable the efficient and selective desilylation of a broad variety of simple and complex arylsilanes under mild conditions.

The Power of the Proton: From Superacidic Media to Superelectrophile Catalysis

Superacidic media became famous in connection with carbocations. Yet not all reactive intermediates can be generated, characterized, and eventually isolated from these Brønsted acid/Lewis acid cocktails. The counteranion, that is the conjugate base, in these systems is often too nucleophilic and/or engages in redox chemistry with the newly formed cation. The Brønsted acidity, especially superacidity, is in fact often not even crucial unless protonation of extremely weak bases needs to be achieved. Instead, it is the chemical robustness of the aforementioned counteranion that determines the success of the protolysis. The advent of molecular Brønsted superacids derived from weakly coordinating, redox-inactive counteranions that do withstand the enormous reactivity of superelectrophiles such as silicon cations completely changed the whole field. This Perspective summarizes general aspects of medium and molecular Brønsted acidity and shows how applications of molecular Brønsted superacids have advanced from stoichiometric reactions to catalytic processes involving protons and in situ generated superelectrophiles.

Chemoselective Cleavage of Si-C(sp3) Bonds in Unactivated Tetraalkylsilanes Using Iodine Tris(trifluoroacetate)

Organosilanes are synthetically useful reagents and precursors in organic chemistry. However, the typical inertness of unactivated Si-C(sp³) bonds under conventional reaction conditions has hampered the application of simple tetraalkylsilanes in organic synthesis. Herein we report the chemoselective cleavage of Si-C(sp³) bonds of unactivated tetraalkylsilanes using iodine tris(trifluoroacetate). The reaction proceeds smoothly under mild conditions (-50 °C to room temperature) and tolerates various polar functional groups, thus enabling subsequent Tamao-Fleming oxidation to provide the corresponding alcohols. NMR experiments and density functional theory calculations on the reaction indicate that the transfer of alkyl groups from Si to the I(III) center and the formation of the Si-O bond proceed concertedly to afford an alkyl-λ³-iodane and silyl trifluoroacetate. The developed method enables the use of unactivated tetraalkylsilanes as highly stable synthetic precursors.

B(C6 F5 )3 -Catalyzed Selective Chlorination of Hydrosilanes

The chlorination of Si-H bonds often requires stoichiometric amounts of metal salts in conjunction with hazardous reagents, such as tin chlorides, Cl₂ , and CCl₄ . The catalytic chlorination of silanes often involves the use of expensive transition-metal catalysts. By a new simple, selective, and highly efficient catalytic metal-free method for the chlorination of Si-H bonds, mono-, di-, and trihydrosilanes were selectively chlorinated in the presence of a catalytic amount of B(C₆ F₅ )₃ or Et₂ O⋅B(C₆ F₅ )₃ and HCl with the release of H₂ as a by-product. The hydrides in di- and trihydrosilanes could be selectively chlorinated by HCl in a stepwise manner when Et₂ O⋅B(C₆ F₅ )₃ was used as the catalyst. A mechanism is proposed for these catalytic chlorination reactions on the basis of competition experiments and density functional theory (DFT) calculations.

Utilization of a Trimethylsilyl Group as a Synthetic Equivalent of a Hydroxyl Group via Chemoselective C(sp3)-H Borylation at the Methyl Group on Silicon

A conversion of trimethylsilylalkanes into the corresponding alcohols is established based on an iridium-catalyzed, chemoselective C(sp³)-H borylation of the methyl group on silicon. The (borylmethyl)silyl group formed by C(sp³)-H borylation is treated with H₂O₂/NaOH, and the resulting (hydroxymethyl)silyl group is converted into a hydroxyl group by Brook rearrangement, followed by oxidation of the resulting methoxysilyl group under Tamao conditions. An alternative route proceeding through the formylsilyl group formed from a (hydroxymethyl)silyl group by Swern oxidation is also established. The method is applicable to substituted trimethylsilylcycloalkanes and 1,1-dimethyl-1-silacyclopentane for conversion into the corresponding stereodefined cycloalkyl alcohols and 1,4-butanediol.