After years of trying, chemists have finally made a molecule somewhere between benzene (C6H6), and its inorganic boron/nitrogen equivalent borazine (B3N3H6).
In the molecule, 1,2-dihydro-1,2-azaborine, one of benzene's carbon atoms is replaced with a nitrogen, and another with a boron atom. Scientists have been trying to make this compound since the 1960s, with no luck.
David Dixon at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Lev Zakharov at the University of Oregon in Eugene and their colleagues have now succeeded. The compound, which they made by stabilizing the reactive intermediates with a chromium-based protecting unit, is stable, and like benzene is aromatic, although not as strongly.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chemistry: An aromatic hybrid. Nature 457, 239 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/457239d
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/457239d
