dodecaborate
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The dodecaborate(12) anion, [B12H12]2−, is a boron hydride cluster anion. It forms a variety of colorless salts with alkali metal and quaternary ammonium cations. The cluster has a distinctive icosahedral structure with 12 boron atoms at the vertices, each boron atom is attached to a hydrogen atom. Its symmetry is classified by the molecular point group Ih.
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- Synthesis and reactions
- Substituted derivatives
- Proposed applications
- References
The dodecaborate(12) anion, [B12H12]2−, is a boron hydride cluster anion. It forms a variety of colorless salts with alkali metal and quaternary ammonium cations. The cluster has a distinctive icosahedral structure with 12 boron atoms at the vertices, each boron atom is attached to a hydrogen atom. Its symmetry is classified by the molecular point group Ih.
==Synthesis and reactions== The existence of the dodecaborate(12) anion, [B12H12]2−, was predicted by H. C. Longuet-Higgins and M. de V. Roberts in 1955. Hawthorne and Pitochelli first made it 5 years later, by the reaction of 2-iododecaborane with triethylamine in benzene solution at 80 °C. It is more conveniently prepared in two steps from sodium borohydride. First the borohydride is converted into a triborate anion using the etherate of boron trifluoride: 5 NaBH4 + BF3 → 2 NaB3H8 + 3 NaF + 2 H2 Pyrolysis of the triborate gives the twelve-boron cluster as the sodium salt. A variety of other synthetic methods have been published.