Ana Torvisco, Mario Leypold, Lukas Schuh, Roland Fischer, Michael Haas, Harald Stueger
The stable exocyclic silenolates 2a–c (2a, R = Mes; 2b, R = o-Tol; 2c, R = 1-Ad) were fully characterized by NMR and UV–vis spectroscopy. According to spectroscopic and structural features, 2a–c are best described as acyl silyl anions (tautomeric structure I) in solution. This behavior is also reflected by the reaction of 2a,c with MeI. Both alkylation reactions take place at the corresponding silicon atom and lead to the formation of the methylated structures 4a,b in nearly quantitative yields. Furthermore, the thermal stability of exocyclic silenolates 2a,c was investigated. In the case of 2a, a thermally induced intramolecular sila-Peterson alkenation was observed at 60 °C. This transformation allowed straightforward access to 2-oxahexasilabicyclo[3.2.1]octan-8-ide 5 as a structurally complex, bicyclic silicon framework. In contrast to that, heating of 2c, as an example of an alkyl-substituted silenolate, led to an unexpected degradation to uncharacterized polymers. However, we were able to isolate the 1-adamantyl-substituted, bicyclic compound 8, which is structurally closely related to 5, by the treatment of 1,4-dipotassium-1,4-bis(trimethylsilyl)cyclohexasilane with 1 equiv of 1-adamantoyl chloride. Again an intramolecular sila-Peterson alkenation is responsible for the formation of 8. The mechanism for this highly selective reaction sequence is outlined and supported by density functional theory (DFT) calculations, which highlight the thermodynamic driving force and the low activation barriers of this multistep transformation.
