Structural study of arylsilanes using 29Si NMR

²⁹Si NMR data (σ and ¹H, ²⁹Si coupling constants) of a series of arylsilanes were studied in relation to their molecular structure. It is shown that silicon chemical shift variation is too weak to allow empirical attribution. In contrast, ²⁹Si, ¹H coupling constants across the aromatic ring, especially the ³J, allow structural assignment. Generally, SPT experiments are sufficient to obtain these values. However, full attribution of polysilylated derivatives sometimes needs other experiments to identify all the silicons. A 2D J-resolved INEPT experiment is described and has proven to be an efficient method for ²⁹Si NMR signal identification. The usefulness of this approach is demonstrated by the complete analysis of all the ²⁹Si lines in a trisilyl derivative. An easy-to-use INEPT decoupled-type sequence is also proposed for a rapid characterization of polysilylated derivatives or mixture of isomers.