Sila[1]ferrocenophanes with Bulky Substituents

In this study, sila[1]ferrocenophanes with sterically bulky groups such as tris(trimethylsilyl) or N‐heterocyclic iminato located at the bridging silicon atom were synthesized. The reactions of silicon‐bound chloride in Fe(η5‐C5H4)2SiCl2 (1) with K[Si(SiMe3)3] and silylated N‐heterocyclic imine resulted in sila[1]ferrocenophanes 2 and 3 with bulky silicon‐ and nitrogen‐based substituents at the ansa bridge via elimination of KCl and Me3SiCl. Subsequently, we attempted the reduction of 1 using 2,3,5,6‐tetramethyl‐1,4‐bis(trimethylsilyl)‐1,4‐dihydropyrazine (popularly known as Mashima reagent), which led to the elimination of Me3SiCl and generation of 1,4‐dihydropyrazine spanned sila[1]ferrocenophanes (4). All the compounds have been structurally characterized.