Boride structures, building block

A typical building block used to construct several solid-state structures (boron-rich borides and allotropes of elemental boron) is the B12 icosahedron. According to King, (1993) an icosahedral B12 building block in which each of the 12 vertices contributes a single electron for an external two-electron two-centre (2e, 2c) bond to an external group implies the following electron count ... 

According to literature sources mainly oxides, nitrides, borides and carbides are used as ceramic raw materials of chemical and structural applications and the most common elements in these compounds are Be, Mg, Ca, Ti, V, Cr, Y, Zr, La, Hf, W, B, Al, Si and Sn. These elements can be found in rather small area of the periodic table, i.e. in the groups 2 up to and including 6, 13 and 14. So apparently relatively few ingredients are used in this branch of ceramics to produce a wide range of products. The tricks of the trade are in the preparation. The properties are determined by a number of factors, such as the nature of the building blocks, the kind of bonds, the strength of the bonds, the crystal structure and the reactivity of the material. 

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