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Single-Atom Ligation of Four Different Alcohols at One Silicon Center: Methodology Development and Proof of Concept

Chao Wang

Chao Wang

School of Chemistry, Xi'an Key Laboratory of Sustainable Energy Materials Chemistry, Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU), Xi'an, 710049 P.R. China

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Xin Xu

Xin Xu

School of Chemistry, Xi'an Key Laboratory of Sustainable Energy Materials Chemistry, Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU), Xi'an, 710049 P.R. China

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Xinyu Zhang

Xinyu Zhang

School of Chemistry, Xi'an Key Laboratory of Sustainable Energy Materials Chemistry, Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU), Xi'an, 710049 P.R. China

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Haifeng Lin

Haifeng Lin

School of Chemistry, Xi'an Key Laboratory of Sustainable Energy Materials Chemistry, Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU), Xi'an, 710049 P.R. China

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Jie Wang

Jie Wang

School of Chemistry, Xi'an Key Laboratory of Sustainable Energy Materials Chemistry, Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU), Xi'an, 710049 P.R. China

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Pathan Mosim Amin

Pathan Mosim Amin

School of Chemistry, Xi'an Key Laboratory of Sustainable Energy Materials Chemistry, Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU), Xi'an, 710049 P.R. China

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Prof. Dr. Youliang Wang

Corresponding Author

Prof. Dr. Youliang Wang

School of Chemistry, Xi'an Key Laboratory of Sustainable Energy Materials Chemistry, Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU), Xi'an, 710049 P.R. China

E-mail: [email protected]

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First published: 20 July 2025

Abstract

While critical and indispensable in diversified areas, organosilicon compounds are not naturally occurring and all rely on chemical synthesis. The de novo synthesis of them via quadruple substitutions of tetrachlorosilane was one of the most straightforward and common practices but confronted over-substitution challenges for heteroleptic silanes, especially the ones with four different substituents. Although selective and iterative substitutions at silicon have achieved notable achievements, methods for fully heteroleptic tetraalkoxysilanes are still lacking. Herein, we established the key dephenylative etherification reaction coupling phenylsilanes and alcohols to alkoxysilanes and then developed triphenylchlorosilane (Ph3SiCl) as the surrogate to tetrachlorosilane for the iterative and controllable ligation of four different alcohols to one silicon center as fully heteroleptic tetraalkoxysilanes. Mechanistic studies revealed the unusual transformations of Wheland intermediates into both silicon cations and silylated phenylhalonium ions in low and comparable activation barriers.

Conflict of Interests

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available in the Supporting Information of this article.

The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties.