Ammonium Aminodiboranate: A Long-Sought Isomer of Diammoniate of Diborane and Ammonia Borane Dimer

Weidong Chen; Haibo Yu; Guotao Wu; Teng He; Zhao Li; Zaiping Guo; Huakun Liu; Zhenguo Huang; Ping Chen

doi:10.1002/chem.201601375

Ammonium Aminodiboranate: A Long-Sought Isomer of Diammoniate of Diborane and Ammonia Borane Dimer

Chemistry. 2016 Jun 1;22(23):7727-9. doi: 10.1002/chem.201601375. Epub 2016 Apr 26.

Authors

Weidong Chen^{1

2}, Haibo Yu³, Guotao Wu¹, Teng He¹, Zhao Li^{1

2}, Zaiping Guo⁴, Huakun Liu⁴, Zhenguo Huang⁵, Ping Chen^{6

7}

Affiliations

¹ National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, 457 Zhongshan Road, Dalian, 116023, Liaoning, P. R. China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China.
³ School of Chemistry, University of Wollongong, New South Wales, 2522, Australia.
⁴ Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials (ISEM), University of Wollongong, New South Wales, 2522, Australia.
⁵ Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials (ISEM), University of Wollongong, New South Wales, 2522, Australia. zhenguo@uow.edu.au.
⁶ National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, 457 Zhongshan Road, Dalian, 116023, Liaoning, P. R. China. pchen@dicp.ac.cn, pchen@dicp.ac.cn.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Catalysis and The Collaborative Innovation Center for Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, 457 Zhongshan Road, Dalian, 116023, Liaoning, P. R. China. pchen@dicp.ac.cn, pchen@dicp.ac.cn.

PMID: 27017580
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201601375

Abstract

Ammonium aminodiboranate ([NH4 ][BH3 NH2 BH3 ]) is a long-sought isomer of diammoniate of diborane ([NH3 BH2 NH3 ][BH4 ]) and ammonia borane (NH3 BH3 ) dimer. Our results show that [NH4 ][BH3 NH2 BH3 ] is stable in tetrahydrofuran at -18 °C and decomposes rapidly to NH3 BH2 NH2 BH3 and H2 at elevated temperatures. The decomposition pathway is dictated by the dihydrogen bonding between H(δ+) on NH4 (+) and H(δ-) on BH3 , as confirmed by theoretical calculations. This is in contrast to the interconversion between [NH3 BH2 NH3 ][BH4 ] and (NH3 BH3 )2 , although all three have dihydrogen bonds and the same stoichiometry.

Keywords: aminodiboranes; boranes; boron; hydrogen bonds.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't