Reinvestigation of bis(trimethylsilyl)mercury

In the course of work on main-group silyl compounds, crystals of the title compound, [Hg(C3H9Si)2]2, were prepared. An earlier X-ray analysis of this compound failed to give a full structural characterization. Here, the title compound is found to consist of dimers with 222 crystallographic symmetry formed by two molecules of (Me3Si)2Hg linked by a weak Hg⋯Hg interaction with an interatomic distance of 3.1463 (6) A. Each Si—Hg—Si frame is nearly linear and has an Hg—Si distance of 2.4913 (18) A.