Magnesium boride structure

As we shall see later, borides (as well as oxides, nitrides, carbides, etc.) react with water to produce a hydrogen compound of the nonmetal. Thus, the reaction of magnesium boride with water might be expected to produce BH3, borane, but instead the product is B2ff6, diborane (m.p. -165.5 °C, b.p. -92.5 °C). This interesting covalent hydride has the structure... 

Other interesting directions are hardening with intermetallics, quasi-crystals, borides, silicides, discrete fibres, creation of natural composites. Conscious regulation of structure and properties of such materials requires studying phase equlibria in multi-component systems, in particular on the basis of light metals like aluminum, magnesium, titanium. The important direction is also a creation of specially organized porous structures. To some extent these directions are presented in a number of papers of the present book. 

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