Cluster compounds heteroboranes

Ralph Rudolph made major contributions to our understanding of the structure and bonding of polyhedral cluster compounds and he had an abiding interest in developing a rationale which would enable the structure of individual compounds to be systematized and related to each other. He independently arrived at a method of counting skeletal electrons which is now generally referred to as Wade s Rules, and this has had a decisive influence on our general perceptions of polyhedral cluster compounds. Related to this was his preoccupation with the problem of heteroatoms such as sulfur, and the number of electrons which such atoms contribute to the heteroborane clusters. 

The boron hydrides, including the polyhedral boranes, heteroboranes, and their metaUa derivatives, encompass an amazingly diverse area of chemistry. This class contains the most extensive array of structurally characterized cluster compounds known. Included here are many novel clusters possessing idealized molecular geometries ranging over every point group symmetry from identity (C[) to icosahedral (I[). Because boron hydride clusters may be considered in some respects to be progenitorial models of metal clusters, their development has provided a framework for the development of cluster chemistry in... 

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