Alfred Stock - Research On The Hydrides of Boron and Silicon

Research On The Hydrides of Boron and Silicon

Stock began studying the boron hydrides - the boron hydrogen chemical compounds with general formula B_xH_y - since 1909 at Breslau. Due to their extreme reactivity and flammability in air, boron hydrides could not be purified until his development of methods for separation using high-vacuum manifolds around 1912. He performed similar work on the hydrides of silicon. The hydrides of boron and silicon represented the first family of binary compounds to approach the richness of hydrocarbons in terms of structural diversity. Not only did the boron hydrides exhibit challenging properties, their structures were also unusual. Elucidation of the structures and the associated bonding models dramatically expanded the scope of inorganic chemistry. Boron hydrides such as diborane later developed into a range of reagents for organic synthesis as well as a source of diverse ligands and building blocks for researchers. With Henri Moissan, Stock discovered silicon boride