Carbon-atoms-adjacent and carbon-atoms-apart supercarboranes

INOR 784

Zuowei Xie, zxie@cuhk.edu.hk, Department of Chemistry, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT Hong Kong, China
It is only in recent years that significant progress has been made in the chemistry of supercarboranes. Carbon-atoms-adjacent (CAd) 13- and 14-vertex carboranes and their corresponding 14- and 15-vertex metallacarboranes have been successfully prepared and structurally characterized. Such a breakthrough relies on the use of CAd carborane anions as starting materials. The methodology for the controlled syntheses of CAd nido-carboranes and arachno-carboranes developed earlier in our laboratory provides a very important entry point to supercarboranes. It is very clear that the short C,C'-linkage can force the two cage carbon atoms of carboranes in adjacent positions during the reductive process. Is such a linkage necessary to stabilize the supercarboranes? The answers will be discussed in this talk.