Electrochemical properties of organoboron compounds

The authors studied the electrochemical properties of trimethyl-, tri-n-butyl-, triphenyl-, tri-o-naphthyl-, and trimesitylborons, as well as their complexes with ammonia and pyridine. A figure shows cyclic voltammograms of trimethylboron in a 0.1 M NaBF4 supporting electrolyte in acetonitrile, and a table shows electrochemical oxidation of organoboron compounds R3B and their complexes R3.NH3, R3B.NC5H5 on platinum disk electrode by the method of cyclic voltammetry. It was found that the simplest organoboron compounds are electrochemically oxidized with difficulty, and the values of the half-wave potentials of oxidation cannot be used to estimate their reactivity with respect to oxygen and other chemical oxidizing agents; complex formation with ammonia and pyridine sharply increases the ability of organoboron compounds for electrochemical oxidation