Radical polymerization of the silene (Me3Si)2Si=CR2 by hydrogen transfer from a trimethylsilyl group

Dmitry Bravo-Zhivotovskii; Semyon Melamed; Victoria Molev; Nadejda Sigal; Boris Tumanskii; Mark Botoshansky; Gregory Molev; Yitzhak Apeloig

doi:10.1002/anie.200805840

Radical polymerization of the silene (Me3Si)2Si=CR2 by hydrogen transfer from a trimethylsilyl group

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2009;48(10):1834-7. doi: 10.1002/anie.200805840.

Authors

Dmitry Bravo-Zhivotovskii¹, Semyon Melamed, Victoria Molev, Nadejda Sigal, Boris Tumanskii, Mark Botoshansky, Gregory Molev, Yitzhak Apeloig

Affiliation

¹ Shulich Faculty of Chemistry and the Lise Meitner-Minerva Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel. chrbrzh@tx.technion.ac.il

PMID: 19185047
DOI: 10.1002/anie.200805840

Abstract

The silene (Me(3)Si)(2)Si=Ad is polymerized to produce a polycarbosilane with an unusual Si-Si-C repeating backbone, rather than the Si-C or Si-Si-C-C units expected for olefinic radical polymerization. The polymer structure and the polymerization mechanism (see scheme) were studied by GPC, EPR, and NMR spectroscopy and by trapping experiments.