Boron clusters: Do they receive the deserved interest?

Abstract

New applications in which the carborane and metallacarborane species play a crucial role have been recently developed. In these applications, clusters display many particular characteristics that do not find parallel in their organic counterparts. The o-carborane can modulate the C···C distances depending on the substituents bonded to the cluster carbon atom and can lead to the formation of uncommon halogenophosphane charge-transfer “spoke ” complexes with iodine due to their electron-withdrawing capacity. Besides, metallacarboranes have been used as doping agents in organic conducting polymers and as catalysts in Kharasch reactions.