Photochemical alkynylation of hydrosilanes by iron catalysis

Alkynylsilanes are one kind of essential synthetic block in organic chemistry. The established synthetic routes retain some drawbacks regarding harsh reaction conditions or expensive/rare metal catalysts. Herein, we report a method for iron-catalyzed, visible-light-induced alkynylation of hydrosilanes to produce value-added silicon compounds. Alkynes bearing functional groups with different steric properties and alkyl/aryl hydrosilanes were both suitable substrates. Mechanistic studies showed that chlorine radicals generated by iron-catalyzed ligand-to-metal charge transfer in the presence of lithium chloride promoted the formation of silyl radicals.