Preparation of silane-grafted pellets: silica bound reagents in a very convenient form

High surface area silica pellets are excellent supports for the preparation of silica supported reagents and solid-phase basal linkers through reaction with (RO)3Si(CH2)3FG (FG=NH2, NHMe, Cl, NHC(O)NH2, OC(O)CMe(CH2), NCO, NEt2). High loadings (0.66–2.15 mmol g−1) of grafted silane materials are realised at synthetically useful loadings per pellet (ca. 0.06 mmol). Preliminary trials show that trial linker chemistry and ligand synthesis can be carried out on these materials and that these reactions can be monitored by solid state 13C NMR studies on individual pellets.