Boron stabilising anions

Lopez Garcia et al. [2] have described a rapid and sensitive spectrophotometric method for the determination of boron complex anions in plant extracts and waters which is based on the formation of a blue complex at pH 1 - 2 between the anionic complex of boric acid with 2,6-dihydroxybenzoic acid and crystal violet. The colour is stabilised with polyvinyl alcohol. At 600 nm the calibration graph is linear in the range 0.3-4.5 xg boron per 25 ml of final solution, with a relative standard deviation of 2.6% for xg/l of boron. In this procedure to determine borate in plant tissues, the dried tissue is treated with calcium hydroxide, then ashed at 400 °C. The ash is digested with 1N sulfuric acid and heated to 80 °C, neutralized with cadmium hydroxide and then treated with acidic 2,6-dihydroxybenzoic acid and crystal violet, and the colour evaluated spectrophotometrically at 600 nm. Most of the ions present in natural waters or plant extracts do not interfere in the determination of boron complex anions by this procedure. Recoveries of boron from water samples and plant extracts were in the range of 97 -102%. 

The oxyanion produced in the first step can help stabilise the electron-deficient BH3 molecule by adding to its empty p orbital. Now we have a tetravalent boron anion again, which could transfer a second hydrogen atom (with its pair of electrons) to another molecule of aldehyde. 

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