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Updated: May 4, 2026

Author Spotlight: Experimental Approaches for the Synthesis of Low-Valent Metal-Organic Frameworks from Multitopic Phosphine Linkers
Published on: May 12, 2023
An unusual example of hypervalent silicon: a five-coordinate silyl group bridging two palladium or nickel centers
Ainara Nova1, Hee-Won Suh, Timothy J Schmeier
1Centre for Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1033, Blindern, 0315 Oslo (Norway); Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ), Avgda Països Catalans, 16, 43007 Tarragona (Spain). ainara.nova@kjemi.uio.no.
Abstract:
Pd and Ni dimers supported by PSiP ligands in which two hypervalent five-coordinate Si atoms bridge the two metal centers are reported. Crystallographic characterization revealed a rare square-pyramidal geometry at Si and an unusual asymmetric M2 Si2 core (M=Pd or Ni). DFT calculations showed that the unusual structure of the core is also found in a model in which the phosphine and Si centers are not part of a pincer group, thus indicating that the observed geometry is not imposed by the PSiP ligand. NBO analysis showed that an asymmetric four-center two-electron (4c-2e) bond stabilizes the hypervalent Si atoms in the M2 Si2 core.
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