Hydrosilylation of Unsaturated Carbon—Heteroatom Bonds

Catalytic hydrosilylation is one of the most important and convenient methods of reduction of C═O and C═N bonds. Hydrosilylation of ketones (imines) produces in single step silyl ethers (silylamines) which can be easily transformed into alcohols (amines) via an additional hydrolysis step. In this chapter, the hydro-silylation of carbonyl compounds, imines and nitriles with emphasis put on the synthetic, catalytic and mechanistic aspects is reviewed. Efficient catalysts including mainly transition metal complexes but also main group metal complexes, nucleophiles or electrophiles, free-radical initiating systems as well as metals (or supported metals) are described. In a separate section, the progress in hydrosilylation of CO

2

is summarised. Finally, the addition of Si—H to other unsaturated bonds such as C═S, S═O and N═N is shortly described.