Frustrated Lewis Pair-Promoted\nOrganocatalytic Transformation\nof Hydrosilanes into Silanols with Water Oxidant

Owing to their unique properties, the silanols have attracted\nintense\nattention but remain challenging to prepare from the organocatalytic\noxidation of hydrosilanes using H<sub>2</sub>O as a green oxidant.\nHerein, we employ a frustrated Lewis pair (FLP) to successfully suppress\nthe formation of undesired siloxanes and produce silanols in high\nto excellent yields in the presence of H<sub>2</sub>O. Mechanistic\nstudies suggest that the reaction is initiated with the activation\nof FLP by H<sub>2</sub>O rather than by silanes and goes through a\nconcerted S<sub>N</sub>2 mechanism. More importantly, the combination\nof the FLP-catalyzed oxidation of hydrosilanes with B(C<sub>6</sub>F<sub>5</sub>)<sub>3</sub>-catalyzed dehydrogenation enables us to\nrealize the precise synthesis of sequence-controlled oligosiloxanes.\nThis method exhibits a broad substrate scope and can be easily scaled\nup, thus exhibiting promising application potentials in the precision\nsynthesis of silicon-containing polymer materials.