The Pt/C cat a lyzed hydrosilylation of Si8O12(CH=CH2)8 and 8 equiv of HSiMe2Cl pro duced Si8O12(CH2CH2SiMe2Cl)8 that was de-hydrochlorinated with 4 equiv of Z-HOCH2CH2=CHCH2OH in the pres ence of ex cess TMEDA. This prep a ra tion re sulted in the at tach ment of four sur face bridges (-CH 2 CH 2 SiMe 2 OCH 2 CH=CHCH 2 OSiMe 2 CH 2 CH 2 -Z-) on the quasi-cube Si 8 O 12 frame work. As a par al lel study, the the o ret i cal cal cu la tions of Si8O12(-CH2CH2SiH2OCH2CH=CHCH2OSiH2CH2CH2-Z-)4 were carried out at PM3 semi-empirical level to find op ti mized ge om e tries for use in four sub se quent ab in itio com puta tions us ing stan dard ba sis sets of 3-2lG* and 6-31G*. The cal cu la tions sug gest that one should ex pect about equimolar mix ture of the tetra-adducts pro duced by the bridg ing over the edges of the quasi-cube, ei ther over four par al lel edges or over two or thogo nal pairs of par al lel edges, but not by bridg ing across the faces of the quasi-cube.
IN TRO DUC TIONPoly he dral oligomeric silsesquioxanes with a gen eral for mula (RSiO3/2)n have a pre cisely de fined in or ganic core, where R maybe hy dro gen, or ganic or in or ganic sub stitu ents, and n is an even num ber greater than 4. They are top o log ically ideal in the prep a ra tion of in ti mate nanocomposite ma te ri als.1 With a quasi-cube shape sil ica core, 2,3 the beststudied octasilsesquioxanes Si 8 O 12 R 8 are com monly ob tained in the hydrolytic polycondensation of RSiCl3 or RSi(OEt)3. 4 For in stance, the acidic hy dro ly sis of (CH2=CH)Si(OEt)3 leads to Si 8 O 12 (CH=CH 2 ) 8 , 5 in which the 8 branch-end vi nyl groups are equiv a lently at tached to the rigid core, each Si posi tion be ing mimic to a cor ner Si-atom of sil ica sur face.With an elec tron-withdrawing sil ica core, the selfmetathesis of Si8O12 (CH=CH2) and Ph sub stitu ents or the for ma tion of metallacyclobutanes con tain ing two ad ja cent Si8O12 frame works. In ad di tion to the large steric en ergy, Si8O12(CH=CH2)8 has the most densely pop u lated ter mi nal olefins on its surface. It is surely of in ter est to build mul ti ple rings on the Si8O12 frame work, mak ing use of the vinylic func tions for chem i cal elab o ra tion. This re port deals with the cal cu la tions of Si8O12(-CH2CH2SiH2OCH2CH=CHCH2OSiH2CH2CH2-Z-)4 1, and the ex per i men tal prep a ra tion of Si8O12 (-CH2CH2-SiMe 2 OCH 2 CH=CHCH 2 OSiMe 2 CH 2 CH 2 -Z-) 4 2, each be ing with 4 macrocyclic rings based on Si8O12 quasi-cage. As the cen tral Si8O12 quasi-cage is looped with four chains, structural iso mers (e.g., 1a, 1b, and 1c, vide in fra) arise, that are com puted in or der to clar ify the rel a tive energetics. Cage com pounds have fre quently been com puted 10 as spe cies of fo cused in ter est of both ex per i ment and the ory.
CAL CU LA TIONSAll ge om e try optimizations of 1a, 1b, and 1c were carried out at the PM3 semi-empirical level us ing the Spar tan pro gram pack age.11 The optimizations were per formed with
Jour nal of the Chi nese Chem i cal So ci ety, 2002, 49, 943-9...