Carbon carboranes

A convenient route to three-carbon carboranes is the hydroboration of an alkyne with a preformed dicarbaborane. For example, reaction of ethyne (or propyne) with arachno-4,5-C2B7Hi3 (70) in hexane at 120°C gives a mixture of tri- and tetra-carbaboranes, e.g. (71), (72), (73), (74) in modest yield. Access to other... 

In this review, we treat in depth the synthesis, structures, properties, and reactions of -bonded metallocarboranes. Our survey is restricted to complexes of 2-carbon carboranes and to species that have between nine and fourteen total polyhedral vertices. Coverage of metal complexes of other heteroboranes is available in Grimes s book (41) and in Todd s review (93). The recent work of Grimes and his group has concentrated on metallocarboranes having fewer than nine vertices (42, 75, 76). 

A convenient route to three-carbon carboranes is the hydroboration of an alkyne with a preformed dicarbaborane. For example, reaction of ethyne (or propyne) with arachno-... 

An extensive review of bonding principles used to describe the carboranes and related systems is now available 17). For the purpose of the present discussion a simplified molecular orbital approach 17, 309-311) is briefly outlined. In this treatment it is convenient to initially examine the B H ions which are considered to be isoelectronic with the two-carbon carboranes. The hypothetical BsHs ", and 87117 ions can be pictured with an... 

Thus, far, all of the known carboranes have been derived either directly or indirectly from reactions of alkynes with various boron hydrides. In these reactions only the carbons participating in the triple bond of the alkyne become skeletal atoms in the carborane. No routes to the hypothetical four-carbon carboranes have been suggested. However, the dehydrogenation of the cyclic diborane derivatives prepared from butadiene 98, 100) should lead to C4BHS and C4B2H6. Unfortunately, such a conversion may require electric discharge conditions, in which case extremely low yields can be expected. 

Allylation of the 10-carborane 236 (pKa = 18-22) with diallyl carbonate is possible under neutral conditions to give 237[146], Allylation and rearrangement of the trialkylalkynylborane 238 affords the trisubstituted alkene 239 stereoselectively [ 147],... 

Potential areas of apphcation for carboranes include adhesives, gaskets, and O-rings (27). Research has been reported on improving the oxidation resistance and strength of carbon materials by coating with a carborane siloxane polymer (36). 

R. E. Williams, Coordination number-pattern recognition theory of carborane structures, Adv. Incrg. Chem. Radiochem. 18, 67-142 (1976). R. E. Williams, Chap. 2 in G. A. Olah, K. Wade and R. E. Williams (eds.). Electron Deficient Boron and Carbon Clusters, Wiley, New York, 1991, pp. 11-93. 

C = 12 internationally adopted as the unified atomic weight standard by both chemi.sts and physicists. 6-coordinate carbon established in various carboranes by W. N. Lipscomb and others. (Nobel Prize 1976 for structure and bonding of boranes). 

Sayles (Ref 67) combined n-butylferrocene with l-(2,3-epoxyaliphatic) carboianes of at least 3 carbonations in the aliphatic chain to function both as burning rate catalysts and cross-linking agents for carboxylated polybutadiene and acrylate binders. The use of 1,2-bis(2,3-epoxy-piopyl) carborane and 1-(2,3-epoxypropyl) car-borane boosted the burning rate of a butyl-ferrocene propint from 1.2 to 1.9 inches/sec as the data in Table 32 indicates... 

While related to its carbon analogs, the existence of the RsSi species as a free ion in condensed phases had been doubted for a long time. However, NMR characterization using bulky aryl substituents has provided evidence for the triply coordinated silicon cation. " However, definitive evidence was recently reported by the groups of Reed and Lambert with a silyl cation species bound to three mesityl groups and a carborane [HCBnMesBrg] counterion (Eig. 7.5). It was suggested that... 

But the discovery of the carboranes in the early 1960s revealed that bonding possibilities other than simple o-- or 7r-bonds between B and C centers were necessary to understand the structure of such compounds as 1,5-dicarba-closo-pentaborane(5) [6 in Eq. (1)], which is obtained in low yield in an electrical discharge.6 Ordinary valence conventions cannot account for the bonding of boron to five other atoms, and hence the concept of electron-deficient bonding must be invoked for boron. Although carbon seems to adhere to normal tetravalence, again it should be remembered... 

This review will restrict itself to boron-carbon multiple bonding in carbon-rich systems, as encountered in organic chemistry, and leave the clusters of carboranes rich in boron to the proper purview of the inorganic chemist. Insofar as such three-dimensional clusters are considered at all in these review, interest will focus on the carbon-rich carboranes and the effect of ring size and substituents, both on boron and carbon, in determining the point of equilibrium between the cyclic organoborane and the isomeric carborane cluster. A typical significant example would be the potential interconversion of the l,4-dibora-2,5-cyclohexadiene system (7) and the 2,3,4,5-tetracarbahexaborane(6) system (8) as a function of substituents R (Eq. 2). 

It is known that a carborane framework involves three-center two-electron bonding and is thus an elelctron-deficient cluster. Shatenshtein76 reported that the pKa value of the C—H proton of carborane is 23. Therefore, a proton attached to the carbon of o-carborane could be deprotonated easily by a weak base, and the resulting... 

In Olin s attempts to derivatize dilithiated products of o-carborane with chlorosilanes for further reaction with ammonia, it was observed that cyclic compounds, instead of polymers, were produced by the interaction of the substituents on the adjacent carbon atoms in the o-carborane units.11 However, when a linear dimethoxy intermediate of m-carborane was reacted as an equimolar mixture with dichlorosilane in the presence of the catalyst FeCl3, the quantitative evolution of CH3C1 was observed... 

Figure 66 The thermooxidatively stable silyl-carborane hybrid diethynylbenzene-silylene polymer 108 containing various carbon-carbon unsaturations. (Adapted from ref. 136.)...

On heating in air at 10°C per min, poly(m-carborane-siloxane) shows typically only 4% mass loss at 450°C and 7% mass loss at 600°C (see Fig. 4). In comparison, siloxanes without carborane units, show an approximate 50% mass loss at 450°C. As a consequence of the relatively high boron and carbon content of these materials, pyrolysis is expected to generate ceramic residues of boron carbide/silicon carbide. 

When one considers the potential high-energy release on rupture of a carborane unit, together with the thermodynamic stability of combustion products, it is hardly surprising that there is a body of literature that reports on the use of carbo-ranes within propellant compositions. Their use in energetic applications is to be expected when the enthalpy of formation (AH/) data for the products of combustion for boron are compared to those of carbon. Thermodynamic data for the enthalpy of formation of o-carborane and of typical boron and carbon combustion products is shown in Table 4. Measurements of the standard enthalpy of combustion32 for crystalline samples of ortho-carborane show that complete combustion is a highly exothermic reaction, AH = — 8994 KJmol. ... 

Bipyridylnickel(II) o-carborane-l,2-dicarboxylate eliminated two carbon dioxide molecules in refluxing decane and formed a complex with a QNi three-membered ring [Eq. (99), M = Ni] (107). Both carbon dioxide... 

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