Transition Metal Promoted Reactions of Boron Hydrides

具有笼状结构的氢化硼化合物引起了无机化学家的极大兴趣，因为将它们连接在一起的化学键不同寻常。通过添加金属或碳制备的这些笼状化合物及其衍生物也显示出作为制备各种新材料（如薄膜和陶瓷）的前体的希望。不幸的是，由于缺乏有效的制备方法，这些化合物非常昂贵。该项目的一个主要目标是利用金属催化剂更有效地合成这些重要化合物。该项目的主要重点是开发新的、高收率的合成路线，以构建重要的多面体硼化合物。由于其独特的化学和物理性质，这些类型的化合物已经引起了很大的学术和工业兴趣；然而，由于缺乏通用的合成程序，这一领域的进一步研究受到严重阻碍。在这个实验室里，解决这个问题的方法强调了过渡金属催化剂的发展，类似于那些现在广泛应用于有机和有机金属化学的催化剂，以激活多面体硼化合物进行反应。该实验室之前的工作表明，这些催化剂可用于促进涉及硼氢化物和碳硼烷的各种转化，包括：硼烷-乙炔加成、硼烷-烯烃偶联、脱氢炔插入、脱氢缩合和笼形生长反应。未来的工作将继续研究这些反应的范围和机制，同时探索新的催化反应类型。

Boron hydride compounds with cage-like structures are of considerable interest to inorganic chemists because of the unusual chemical bonds which hold them together. These cage compounds and derivatives thereof prepared by the addition of metals or carbon also show promise as precursors for the preparation of a wide variety of new materials, such as thin films and ceramics. Unfortunately, these compounds have been extremely expensive due to the lack of efficient methods of preparation. A major goal of this project is to use metal catalysts in more efficient syntheses of these important compounds. The major focus of this project is the development of new, high yield synthetic routes for the construction of important polyhedral boron compounds. Owing to their unique chemical and physical properties, these types of compounds have been of great academic and industrial interest; however, further research in the area has been seriously inhibited by the lack of general synthetic procedures. In this laboratory the approach to this problem has emphasized the development of transition metal catalysts, similar to those which are now widely employed in organic and organometallic chemistry, to activate polyhedral boron compounds for reaction. Previous work from this laboratory demonstrated that these catalysts can be used to promote a variety of transformations involving boron hydrides and carboranes, including: borane-acetylene additions, borane-olefin coupling, dehydroalkyne insertions, dehydrocondensations and cage-growth reactions. Future work will continue investigations of the scope and mechanisms of these reactions, along with explorations of new types of catalytic reactions.