Chemistry of Free Boroles

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Holger Braunschweig
• Subject Area: Inorganic Molecular Chemistry - Synthesis and Characterisation
• Term: from 2010 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 186904585

Boroles display exciting optical and electronic properties derived from their antiaromatic structure, comprising an unsaturated five-membered heterocycle with a three-coordinate boron atom. While previous research has shown that the ring substituents play a crucial role in the properties of the boroles, their exact influence remains unclear, owing to the limited number of isolated derivatives. Thus, this project aims at developing a new general synthetic route to access a wide variety of borole architectures, thereby allowing a systematic investigation of their structure-function relationship. The new approach also offers the opportunity to prepare conjugated polymers composed of functional borole moieties within the main chain that will be studied to elucidate their physicochemical characteristics. Another focus of our work is on the anion radical forms of the boroles and in particular the interaction between these radicals in well-defined molecular systems. These systematic studies should demonstrate the potential of boroles as building blocks for high-spin materials and also aid in understanding the charge transport phenomena present in conjugated organoborane polymers, which are becoming increasingly important for functional materials.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants