Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Carborane
A carborane is a cluster composed of boron and carbon atoms. Like many of the related boranes, these clusters are polyhedra, and are similarly classified as closo-, nido-, arachno-, hypho-, etc. based on whether they represent a complete (closo-) polyhedron, or a polyhedron that is missing one (nido-), two (arachno-), or more vertices.
Two interesting examples of carboranes are the extremely stable icosahedral closo-carboranes, such as neutral C2B10H12, which has been explored for use in a wide range of applications from heat-resistant polymers to medical applications, and the negatively charged CB11H12-, which has been used to make solid superacids that are over a thousand times stronger than sulfuric acid.
10-26-2009 08:16:03
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The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details