Carboranes heterocarboranes

Hydroboration of unsaturated diboraheterocycles have been used to prepare nido-C3B3(7) carboranes (55) and hydroboration of diboraheterocycles (X = NMe, S) allowed the formation of the corresponding nido-heterocarboranes with the XC2B3 frameworks (Scheme 3.2-47). 

It is unfortunate that there is not more work appearing on the chemistry and structures of group 13 heterocarboranes. The results that are available raise intriguing questions and tend to pique one s curiosity. From the recent work of Hawthorne et al. on the aluminum sandwich complexes and of Sneddon et al. on the smaller cage systems, it is apparent that there is a wealth of fascinating chemistry yet to be explored in the group 13 carborane systems. 

Polyhedral heterocarborane clusters are promising materials for nanotechnology. This is evident from the interesting applications discussed in this chapter, which include molecular nanoparticles, nanomedicines, and molecular-scale machines and devices. The use of carboranes as building blocks in the computational design of nanostructured materials remains open to novel discoveries that will be possible only by pursuing further research in this fascinating area of molecular chemistry. 

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