On June 28, "Nat. Commun." published online the latest research results of Shen Xiao, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study of Wuhan University, on the synthesis of organosilicon compounds.

The paper is titled "Copper-catalyzed regio- and stereo-selective hydrosilylation of terminal allenes to access (E)-allylsilanes". Chen Shaowei, a doctoral student of the Institute for Advanced Study, is the first author, Shen Xiao and Professor Lan Yu of Chongqing University (Zhengzhou University) are the corresponding authors, and Wuhan University is the first author.

In nature, silicon is extremely abundant, and its content in the earth's crust is second only to oxygen. However, the vast majority of silicon exists in the form of inorganic salts, and natural organic silicon compounds do not exist. Therefore, organosilicon compounds are all artificially synthesized and have been widely used in functional materials, pesticides and other fields. In recent years, with the gradual depletion of petroleum resources, more and more attention has been paid to the synthesis and application of organosilicon compounds. In this context, the synthesis of organosilicon compounds has become a frontier research field in synthetic chemistry.

Transition metal-catalyzed hydrosilation of unsaturated carbon-carbon bonds is a class of step- and atom-economical synthesis methods for organosilicon compounds. However, the control of regioselectivity and stereoselectivity in the hydrosilylation of allenes is a great challenge. While the selective synthesis of vinylsilanes, branched allylsilanes, or linear (Z)-allylsilanes has been achieved, the synthesis of (E)-allylsilanes via transition metal-catalyzed allene hydrosilylation has not been resolved.

This study explores the copper-catalyzed selective hydrosilylation of terminal allenes to obtain (E)-allylsilanes under mild reaction conditions. The reaction substrate has a wide range and is an efficient method for preparing trisubstituted (E)-allylsilanes by allene hydrosilylation reaction, and can also be used to synthesize disubstituted (E)-allylsilanes. Shen Xiao's group studied the mechanism of the reaction through a combination of experimental research and Lan Yu's group's theoretical calculations, showing that the E-selectivity is controlled by the kinetics of the catalyst, but not by the thermodynamic isomerization of (Z)-isomers. control.

The research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the special funds for basic scientific research business expenses of central universities, and the Supercomputing Center of Wuhan University.