Partial halogenation of cyclic and branched perhydropentasilanes

The perhydropentasilanes (H(3)Si)(4)Si and Si(5)H(10) were chlorinated with SnCl(4) to give chlorohydropentasilanes without destruction of the Si-Si backbone. Tetrachloroneopentasilane (ClH(2)Si)(4)Si (2) was prepared in high yield from (H(3)Si)(4)Si and 3.5 equiv of SnCl(4), while Si(5)H(10) and an equimolar amount of SnCl(4) afforded a mixture of ～60% of ClSi(5)H(9) (1) with polychlorinated cyclopentasilanes and unreacted starting material, which could not be separated by distillation. The selective monochlorination of Si(5)H(10) was achieved starting from MesSi(5)Cl(9) (3; Mes = 2,4,6-trimethylphenyl) or TBDMP-Si(5)Cl(9) (4; TBDMP = 4-tert-butyl-2,6-dimethylphenyl). 3 or 4 was successfully hydrogenated with LiAlH(4) to give MesSi(5)H(9) (6) or TBDMP-Si(5)H(9) (7), which finally gave 1 along with aryl-H and Si(5)H(10) after treatment with an excess of liquid anhydrous HCl. All compounds were characterized by standard spectroscopic techniques. For Si-H derivatives, the coupled (29)Si NMR spectra were analyzed in detail to obtain an unequivocal structural assignment. The molecular structures of 2-4 were further confirmed by X-ray crystallography.