Formal SiH4 chemistry using stable and easy-to-handle surrogates

Monosilane (SiH4) is far less well behaved than its carbon analogue methane (CH4). It is a colourless gas that is industrially relevant as a source of elemental silicon, but its pyrophoric and explosive nature makes its handling and use challenging. Consequently, synthetic applications of SiH4 in academic laboratories are extremely rare and methodologies based on SiH4 are underdeveloped. Safe and controlled alternatives to the substituent redistribution approaches of hydrosilanes are desirable and cyclohexa-2,5-dien-1-ylsilanes where the cyclohexa-1,4-diene units serve as placeholders for the hydrogen atoms have been identified as potent surrogates of SiH4. We disclose here that the commercially available Lewis acid tris(pentafluorophenyl)borane, B(C6F5)3, is able to promote the release of the Si-H bond catalytically while subsequently enabling the hydrosilylation of C-C multiple bonds in the same pot. The net reactions are transition-metal-free transfer hydrosilylations with SiH4 as a building block for the preparation of various hydrosilanes.