Arenium-ion-catalysed halodealkylation of fully alkylated silanes

Tao He, Hendrik F. T. Klare () and Martin Oestreich ()
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Tao He: Technische Universität Berlin
Hendrik F. T. Klare: Technische Universität Berlin
Martin Oestreich: Technische Universität Berlin

Nature, 2023, vol. 623, issue 7987, 538-543

Abstract: Abstract ‘Organic silicon’ is not found in nature but modern chemistry is hard to imagine without silicon bound to carbon. Although silicon-containing commodity chemicals such as those emerging from the ‘direct process’1–4 look simple, it is not trivial to selectively prepare aryl-substituted and alkyl-substituted (functionalized) silicon compounds, known as silanes. Chlorosilanes such as Me4−nSiCln (n = 1–3) as well as SiCl4 (n = 4) are common starting points for the synthesis of silicon-containing molecules. Yet these methods often suffer from challenging separation problems5. Conversely, silanes with four alkyl groups are considered synthetic dead ends. Here we introduce an arenium-ion-catalysed halodealkylation that effectively converts Me4Si and related quaternary silanes into a diverse range of functionalized derivatives. The reaction uses an alkyl halide and an arene (co)solvent: the alkyl halide is the halide source that eventually engages in a Friedel–Crafts alkylation with the arene to regenerate the catalyst6, whereas the arenium ion acts as a strong Brønsted acid for the protodealkylation step7. The advantage of the top-down halodealkylation methodology over reported bottom-up procedures is demonstrated, for example, in the synthesis of a silicon drug precursor. Moreover, chemoselective chlorodemethylation of the rather inert Me3Si group attached to an alkyl chain followed by oxidative degradation is shown to be an entry into Tamao–Fleming-type alcohol formation8,9.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06646-9

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