Transition Metal Catalysed Synthesis of Oligo- and Polysilazanes

Organometallic polymer research offers many potential academic and industrial rewards because of the number of elemental variations possible. Unfortunately, there are no general synthetic methods as found for carbon based polymers. Transition metal catalysed dehydrocoupling reactions may prove to be generally applicable to the synthesis of silicon based organometallic polymers. We report here our efforts to synthesise organometallic polymers with a silicon-nitrogen backbone, polysilazanes, using the dehydrocoupling reaction. We also describe the synthesis of polysilazanes for use as precursors to silicon nitride.