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Accepted · first revision · record

Title: Reproducibility of the cavity-modified silane deprotection rate
Plain: The first widely cited claim of a dark cavity effect concerned a reaction that removes a silicon-containing group from a molecule. Independent groups have reported different results for the same reaction.
Precise: For the fluoride-induced desilylation of 1-phenyl-2-trimethylsilylacetylene in a Fabry-Perot cavity tuned to the Si-C stretch near $860\ \mathrm{cm}^{-1}$ or the Si-CH3 deformation near $1250\ \mathrm{cm}^{-1}$, determine whether the rate constant changes relative to detuned cavities by more than the combined experimental error, under controlled temperature and identical sample preparation. An answer is a yes or no from multi-laboratory measurements with shared protocols.
Settled by: A round-robin measurement across several laboratories with identical cavities, reagents and temperature control.
Kind: well-posed
Answer type: yes-no
References: (empty)
Literature status: contested
Status note: The original 2016 report (Thomas et al., Angew. Chem.) found a slowdown of several times; a 2021 replication attempt (Imperatore, Asbury, Giebink, J. Chem. Phys., https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0046307) found no cavity effect beyond error.
Posed since: 2016