Germany isolates stable oxoboranes after 60 years of searching — ScienceDaily

Scientists at the University of Würzburg in Germany have developed a method for producing and isolating organic oxoboranes — molecules long considered too unstable to study. As ScienceDaily reports, the researchers succeeded in synthesizing three different stable compounds of this type.

A problem that could not be solved for decades

Oxoboranes are characterized by a triple bond between boron and oxygen. Chemists have been trying to obtain such molecules at least since the early 1960s. Previously, they could only be detected or recorded under extreme conditions, while related derivatives could also be obtained. However, stable organic oxoboranes that could be isolated and studied remained unattainable.

The work was led by the group of Professor Holger Braunschweig. His laboratory has been studying unusual bonds involving boron for more than 15 years. In 2012, the team reported the first molecule with a triple bond between two boron atoms, and in 2025, the first neutral molecule with a triple bond between boron and carbon.

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An unexpected reaction result

The discovery was made by doctoral students Lukas Lubczyk and Christian Märkl, who separately studied reactions of diboracumulene with various ketones. During the experiments, they obtained yellow and orange solids. It later emerged that oxoboranes were the main products of the reactions, although other chemical outcomes had been expected.

The study was published in the journal Nature Chemistry. Computational support was provided by the group of Professor Ashwini K. Phukan from Tezpur University in India. The team is now testing how broadly this method can be applied to synthesize other oxoboranes and related hard-to-obtain compounds.