Rhenium-mediated dehydrogenative silylation and highly regioselective hydrosilylation of nitrile substituted olefins

The rhenium (I) complex [Re(CH3CN)3Br2(NO)] catalyzes the homogeneous hydrosilylation of a variety of substituted acrylonitriles, which were converted into the corresponding silyl-substituted alkanes with high regioselectivity of up to 94%. The products were analyzed by 1H NMR and GC–MS. A rhenium specific mechanism is proposed for the hydrosilylation of olefins.