Cobalt-catalyzed dehydrogenative cross-coupling reaction: Selective access to dihydrosiloxanes, hydrosiloxanes and functionalized silsesquioxanes

Abstract

Disclosed is a mild, scalable, and chemoselective cross-dehydrogenative functionalization protocol for the construction of Si−O−Si moieties under cobalt catalysis. The reaction has a broad scope and can be used to synthesize a wide range of silicon building blocks, including challenging dihydrosiloxanes and functionalized silsesquioxanes. Most importantly, the results are placed into context by benchmarking with state-of-the-art methods. Remarkably, the utilized PNP-Co catalyst enables the development of further synthetic strategies such as a one-pot sequential silanolysis/alcoholysis process or unprecedented dehydrocoupling reaction between germanol and hydrosilane.