Unusual isotope effect in the reaction of chlorosilylene with trimethylsilane-1-d. Absolute rate studies and quantum chemical and Rice-Ramsperger-Kassel-Marcus calculations provide strong evidence for the involvement of an intermediate complex

Time-resolved studies of chlorosilylene, ClSiH, generated by the 193 nm laser flash photolysis of 1-chloro-1-silacyclopent-3-ene, have been carried out to obtain rate constants for its bimolecular reaction with trimethylsilane-1-d, Me(3)SiD, in the gas phase. The reaction was studied at total pressures up to 100 Torr (with and without added SF(6)) over the temperature range of 295-407 K. The rate constants were found to be pressure independent and gave the following Arrhenius equation: log(k/(cm(3) molecule(-1) s(-1))] = (-13.22 ± 0.15) + (13.20 ± 1.00) kJ mol(-1)]/(RT ln 10). When compared with previously published kinetic data for the reaction of ClSiH with Me(3)SiH, kinetic isotope effects, k(D)/k(H), in the range from 7.4 (297 K) to 6.4 (407 K) were obtained. These far exceed values of 0.4-0.5 estimated for a single-step insertion process. Quantum chemical calculations (G3MP2B3 level) confirm not only the involvement of an intermediate complex, but also the existence of a low-energy internal isomerization pathway which can scramble the D and H atom labels. By means of Rice-Ramsperger-Kassel-Marcus modeling and a necessary (but small) refinement of the energy surface, we have shown that this mechanism can reproduce closely the experimental isotope effects. These findings provide the first experimental evidence for the isomerization pathway and thereby offer the most concrete evidence to date for the existence of intermediate complexes in the insertion reactions of silylenes.