SYNTHESIS AND REACTIONS OF THE INTERMEDIATES OF THE WITTIG, PETERSON,AND THEIR RELATED REACTIONS

The tide intermediates containing a tetracoordinate B atom, pentacoord inate Si, Ge, Sn, and P atoms, and tetracoordinate S and Se atoms, wer e successfully synthesized as stable compounds. The X-ray crystallogra phic analyses of Si, Ge, P, S, and Se compounds indicated that they ha ve a distorted trigonal bipyramidal structure with two oxygen atoms at the apical positions, but those of B, Sn, and another type of Ge comp ounds demonstrated that they have a very distorted tetrahedral boron, a nearly square pyramidal tin, and a tetrahedral germanium interacting with an oxide anion, respectively. On heating all compounds containin g group 13, 14, and 15 elements underwent the Wittig-type reaction to give the corresponding olefin. It was suggested that a tetracoordinate 1,2 lambda(4)-oxathietane is an intermediate of the Corey-Chaykovsky reaction.