Controlled cleavage of R8Si8O12 frameworks: a revolutionary new method for manufacturing precursors to hybrid inorganic–organic materials

Abstract

Cube-octameric polyhedral silsesquioxanes (R₈Si₈O₁₂) react with strong acids (HX) to produce R₈Si₈O₁₁X₂ frameworks resulting from selective cleavage of one Si–O–Si linkage; subsequent hydrolysis affords R₈Si₈O₁₁(OH)₂ frameworks derived from the net hydrolysis of one Si–O–Si linkage in R₈Si₈O₁₂; these results demonstrate for the first time that readily available R₈Si₈O₁₂ frameworks can be used as precursors to incompletely condensed Si/O frameworks and have important implications for the manufacture of hybrid inorganic–organic materials based on discrete polyhedral clusters of silicon and oxygen.