Würzburg3 stable oxoboranes now exist after a 60-year search.
Boron-oxygen triple bonds were the last unmade triple bond in the first row of the p-block.
Doctoral students combined a diboracumulene with ketones and got orange and yellow solids that proved to be oxoboranes.
“Nearly everybody in the field had given up on oxoboranes,” said Holger Braunschweig, who led the Würzburg team.
The team is testing how far the method reaches to other elusive molecules.
How each outlet framed it
- Phys.org
- traces the 60-year hunt for stable organic oxoboranes, crediting Würzburg's team and Tezpur University computational work
Sources: Phys.org