Recent Advances in Transition Metal-Catalyzed C-Si Bond Cleavage of Silacyclobutanes

Due to the widespread application of various organosilicon compounds in material science, electronic devices and pharmaceutical research, it is of great significance to develop green and efficient synthetic methods for diverse silicon-containing molecules. Silacyclobutane is an important kind of small-membered rings, which exhibits unique reactivities under transition metal catalysis to cleave the C-Si bond driven by the inherent ring strain and Lewis acidity. The resulting Si-M species can then be transformed into various organosilicon compounds. Herein, the recent advances of Pd, Rh, and Ni-catalyzed C-Si bond cleavage reactions of silacyclobutanes are summarized in detail, and the mechanism and development tendency of such reactions are briefly discussed.