Conspectus
Group 14
element heteroles are the heavier analogues of cyclopentadienes
in which a heavier group 14 element atom replaces the sp3 carbon atom. In particular siloles and, to a somewhat smaller degree,
germoles attracted considerable attention since the early 1990s due
to their favorable photophysical properties which allowed the construction
of OLEDs using group 14 element heteroles as emissive or electron-transport
layers.
Anions and in particular dianions derived from group
14 element
heteroles have been of substantial interest due to the possible occurrence
of Hückel aromaticity involving the heavier main group atom.
Aromaticity is not the only notable electronic feature of silole and
germole dianions; the spatial and energetic alignment of their frontier
orbitals is equally remarkable. With a high lying lone pair at the
heteroatom, which is orthogonal to a delocalized π-system, their
frontier orbital sequence closely resembles that of N-heterocyclic
carbene analogues. Despite these intriguing parallels between carbene
analogues and silole and germole dianions, disappointingly little
is known about their reactivity. The installation of trialkylsilyl
substituents in the 2,5-positions of the heterocyclopentadiene ring
as in K2[I] has a remarkable effect on the
stability of silole and germole dianions and allows us to study their
reactivity and to evaluate their synthetic potential in detail. Simple
double salt metathesis reactions with different dihalides provided
heterofulvenes. These were detected either as intermediates or, in
the case of carbon dihalides, isolated in the form of their ylidic
isomers II. In other cases, the heterofulvenes were the
starting point for complex reaction sequences leading to novel binuclear
complexes of titanium and zirconium III or for simple
isomerization reactions that lead to bicyclohexene-type tetrylenes
(BCH-tetrylenes) IV, a novel class of heavier carbenes.
These bicyclic carbene analogues are significantly stabilized by homoconjugation
between the electron deficient tetrel atom and the remote CC
double bond. Compound IV with E′R2SiR2 and E = Si is a valence isomer of disilabenzene and is a
stable derivative of the global minimum of the Si2C4H6 potential energy surface. With group 13 dihalides,
as for example with boron dichlorides, topological closely related
compounds V were isolated. These Ge(II) complexes of
borole dianions are isolobal to half-sandwich complexes of main group
elements such as aluminum(I) cyclopentadienide or can be viewed as
nido-type clusters. These analogies already open a broad field for
future investigations of their reactivity.
Trialkylsilyl-substituted
heterole dianions I provide
a facile synthetic approach to several novel intriguing compound classes
with the tetrel element in unusual coordination states. The reactivity
and the synthetic potential of these new compounds is however widely
unexplored and calls for future systematic studies. Gratifyingly,
the periodic table of the elements stills holds a lot of potential
for future ...