Main group analogues of cyclobutane‐1,3‐diyls are fascinating due to their unique reactivity and electronic properties. So far only heteronuclear examples have been isolated. Here we report the isolation and characterization of all‐silicon 1,3‐cyclobutanediyls as stable closed‐shell singlet species from the reversible reactions of cyclotrisilene c‐Si3Tip4 (Tip=2,4,6‐triisopropylphenyl) with the N‐heterocyclic silylenes c‐[(CR2CH2)(NtBu)2]Si: (R=H or methyl) with saturated backbones. At elevated temperatures, tetrasilacyclobutenes are obtained from these equilibrium mixtures. The corresponding reaction with the unsaturated N‐heterocyclic silylene c‐(CH)2(NtBu)2Si: proceeds directly to the corresponding tetrasilacyclobutene without detection of the assumed 1,3‐cyclobutanediyl intermediate.

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The complete reductive cleavage of the triple bond in carbon monoxide was achieved using a lithium disilenide at room temperature. The C-C-coupled product can be regarded as a silanone dimer with pending alkyne and silirene moieties and incorporates two equivalents of CO per disilenide unit. A formation mechanism via ketenyl intermediates is proposed on the basis of DFT calculations and elucidated experimentally by employing Group 6 metal carbonyls as both stabilizing entity and source of CO in the reaction with disilenide. The isolation of cyclic silylene complexes with weakly donating ketenyl donor groups further supports the mechanistic scenario.

The ring-opening reactions of lithium bromocyclopropylidenoids to allenes have been investigated computationally at the B3LYP/6-31G(d) level of theory. Formally, two pathways can be considered: the reaction may either proceed in a concerted fashion or stepwise with the intermediacy of a free cyclopropylidene. In both cases, the loss of the bromide ion determines the kinetic of the reaction. The stability of the reactive intermediate, i.e., the carbene, is dependent on the substituent. Cyclopropylidenes bearing an electron-donating group (+M) are extremely unstable and ring-open readily to the allene. In contrast, bromocyclopropylidenoids with electron-withdrawing groups are particularly stable species. Here, a high energy barrier needs to be overcome in order to split off bromide and to generate the corresponding carbene or allene. Still, for most of the monosubstituted cyclopropylidenes investigated during this study, the activation energy for the cyclopropylidene to allene rearrangement is lower than the energy required for parent compound (X = H) except for X = -SiH3 and -CF3.

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Density functional theory and ab initio quantum mechanical calculations elucidated the ring-opening reactions of 1-bromo-1-lithiosilirane (3) and 2-bromo-2-lithiosilirane (4) to 2-silallene (6) and 1-silaallene (7), respectively. The ring-opening of 3 to 6 can proceed in a stepwise fashion with the intermediacy of a free silacyclopropylidene (9). Here, a high-energy barrier needs to be overcome in order to open the silacyclopropylidene ring and to generate 6. On the contrary, the ring-opening of 4 to 7 can occur in a concerted fashion.

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