This project in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry Program is in the area of main-group chemistry and deals with the chemistry of carbon-boron compounds with cage structures. Such compounds are of considerable interest to theoreticians because of their unusual electronic structures, but are also of considerable practical interest as starting materials for the synthesis of new ceramics and of new compounds for boron-based in vivo imaging. The chemistry of cage compounds of carbon and boron (carboranes) will be studied and will include: (a) cage opening of carboranes with fluoride ion, (b) exploration of the influence of a wide variety of attached groups on the pliability and rearrangements of substituted carborane systems with the expectation that mechanistic details of cage rearrangements will emerge, (c) equilibration studies involving isomeric substituted carboranes with the anticipation that cage stabilizing and destabilizing influences of various substituents can be assessed, (d) a study of net front-side cage displacement reactions, (e) the synthesis of new substituted carboranes that offer possibilities of substantially affecting cage bonding, and (f) the synthesis of new carborane systems.
