Page 115 - Arrow Pushing in Inorganic Chemistry A Logical Approach to the Chemistry of the Main Group Elements

FURTHER READING 95
It is very stimulating to observe the change from the rich chemical possibilities of carbon,
the fountain of terrestrial life, as one passes to its three neighboring elements boron, silicon
and nitrogen.
To be sure, the three refractory non-metals carbon, boron and silicon are so strikingly sim-
ilar in their elemental form that even the older chemistry included them in a limited group.
Their chemical behavior, however, showed hardly any recognizable similarities.

2. Benner, S. A.; Kim, H.-J-; Kim, M.-J-; Ricardo, A. “Planetary Organic Chemistry and the Origins
of Biomolecules,” Cold Spring Harb. Perspect. Biol. 2010,2, a003467.
3. Brown, H. C. Hydroboration; 2nd ed. Benjamin: San Francisco, 1980; 336 pp. A fun, early his-
torical account.
4. Aldrige, S.; Downs, A., eds. The Group 13 Metals: Aluminium, Gallium, Indium and Thallium:
Chemical Patterns and Peculiarities; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2011; 726 pp.
Chapters 1–6 provide detailed treatments of many of the topics discussed in this chapter.
5. Lintl, G.; Schnöckel, H. “Low-Valent Aluminum and Gallium Compounds: Structural Variety and
Coordination Modes to Transition Metal Fragments,” Coord. Chem. Rev. 2000, 206, 285–319. An
excellent review by major contributors to the field.
6. Wang, Y.; Robinson, G. “Carbene Stabilization of Highly Reactive Main-Group Molecules,”
Inorg. Chem. 2011, 50, 12326–12337. A summary of an ingenious route to low–oxidation-state
compounds pioneered by Robinson and his coworkers.
7. Yamashita, M.; Nozaki, K. “Recent Developments of Boryl Anions: Boron Analogues of Carban-
ion,” Bull. Chem. Soc. Jpn. 2008, 81, 1377–1392. A history of these elusive anions.
8. Silva, Jr., L. F.; Carneiro, V. M. T. “Thallium(III) in Organic Synthesis,” Synthesis 2010,
1059–1074. A relatively short but excellent review article.