Fifty years after he won the Nobel, Lipscomb’s insights into boranes continue to pay dividends

Boranes were among the most unusual compounds known to chemists in the early- to mid-20th century. William Lipscomb’s work explaining their structures and bonding earned him the 1976 Nobel prize in chemistry and helped transform scientists’ understanding of the chemical bond.

Originally described as boron hydrides, boranes have the general formula B_xH_yR_z. Long before Lipscomb’s interest in them, Alfred Stock had synthesised the volatile compounds B₂H₆, B₄H₂₀, B₅H₉ and more.