Kurt Niedenzu - Böcker

Although the chemistry of boron is still relatively young, it is developing at a pace where even specific areas of research are difficult to compile into a monograph. Besides the boron hydrides, boron-nitrogen compounds are among the most fascinating derivatives of boron. Nitrogen compounds exist in a wide variety of molecular structures and display many interesting properties. The combination of nitrogen and boron, however, has some unusual features that are hard to match in any other combination of elements. This situation was first recognized by ALFRED STOCK and it seems proper to pay tribute to his outstanding work in the area of boron chemistry. One should realize that about forty years ago, STOCK and his coworkers had to develop completely new experimental techniq'\les and that no guidance for the interpreta­ tion of their rather unusual data had been advanced by theoretical chemists. In this monograph an attempt has been made to explore the general characteristics of structure and the principles involved in the preparation and reactions of boron-nitroge~ compounds. It was a somewhat difficult task to select that information which appears to be of the most interest to "inorganic and general chemistry" since the electronic relationship between a boron-nitrogen and a carbon-carbon grouping is reflected in the "organic" character of many of the reactions and compounds.

The first supplement consisting of 3 volumes covered all the literature uniformly up to the end of 1977, whereas the two volumes of the 2nd supplement have extended the literature coverage of boron compounds to 1980 and the four volumes of the 3rd supplement to 1984.

A broad coverage of boron topics is provided. Special attention is devoted to theoretical studies and calculations on small boron-hydrogen and boron-noble gas species including molecules like BH, which are rather favorite subjects of theoreticians for testing various methods of calculation.