The chemistry of disilyne with a genuine Si-Si triple bond: Synthesis, structure, and reactivity

In this account, our recent results on the chemistry of a stable silicon-silicon triply-bonded compound, disilyne, including recent advances in the chemistry of stable alkyne analogues of heavier group 14 elements, are described. Our original extremely bulky trialkylsilyl substituent, Dis(2)(i)PrSi [Dis = CH(SiMe3)(2)], has enabled the isolation of disilyne as a stable compound, which has been completely characterized by various spectroscopic techniques, as well as X-ray crystallography. Some reactivity of our isolable disilyne will be discussed.