Silanes - Organic Chemistry Portal

Silanes serve, depending upon the type of the silane, as a radical H-donor or as a hydride donor. The range reaches from simple alkyl silanes, alkyl silicones, over different phenylsilanes and halosilanes up to tris silane, which is due to its structure an outstanding radical reducing agent.

Silanes are often used as an alternative to toxic reducing agents. But they offer their own chemistry due to the outstanding affinity from silicon to oxygen and fluorine.

A highly efficient silver-catalyzed chemoselective method enables the reduction of aldehydes to their corresponding alcohols in water by using hydrosilanes as reducing agents. Ketones remained essentially inert under the same reaction conditions.

An experimentally simple Microwave-assisted reductive alkylation of methyl carbamate with a range of aldehydes provides, after basic work-up, structurally diverse primary amines. This method is particularly amenable to high-throughput synthesis.

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