Polymers with heavier group 14 backbones are particularly useful semiconductors, photoconductors, photoresist materials, and nonlinear optical materials due to sigma conjugation. While polysilanes have been studied extensively, polygermanes are far less explored. The established method of polysilane and polygermane production is Wurtz-type coupling using halosilanes and alkali metals. While this process produces high molecular weight chains, yields are generally fairly poor. Recently transition metal catalysts have been used for the coupling of silanes and stannanes with reasonable success, but transition metal catalysts for germane coupling are not as prevelant.  In this study, the interaction of a platinum dimer with phenylsilanes and phenylgermanes was investigated. Reaction times and stoichiometric ratios were sytematically varied yielding a number of different products as determined by IR and multinuclear NMR spectroscopy.  Methodologies and proposed structures are herein presented.<br/>

Si-H and Ge-H bond activation by a platinum dimer

249th National Meeting (2015)

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