Electrochemical strategies for NaX-mediated hydrolysis and alcoholysis of hydrosilanes under mild conditions

Abstract

Employing cheap halogen salts as both mediators and electrolytes, transition metal-free electrochemical approaches for NaCl-mediated hydrolysis of hydrosilanes have been well established to prepare silanols in moderate to good yields with good functional group tolerance under ambient conditions. Furthermore, electrochemical NaBr-promoted alcoholysis of hydrosilanes with a series of alcohols was successfully achieved under metal-free conditions. The synthetic application of eco-friendly and low-cost protocols has been highlighted through scale-up experiments in a galvanostatic mode. Preliminary mechanistic investigations have confirmed that NaCl played an important role in the functionalization of hydrosilanes and indicated that the transformation might proceed via a free radical process under electrochemical conditions.