New Developments in the Chemistry of Polyphosphanes

Abstract

Abstract While silicon and sulfur, which are situated to the left and to the right of phosphorus in the periodic table, from numerous chain and cyclic Si–Si and S–S‐compounds with varying numbers of members, until recently the polyphosphance chemistry has been limited to the two‐membered compounds diphosphane P 2 H 4 and its derivatives. A number of results obtained in studies on polyphosphanes carried out in recent years will therefore be discussed, which, together with some more recent work by other authors, have led to an expansion of our knowledge of the prepration and properties of straight and branched‐chain as well as of cyclic and polycylic –P–P‐systems.