What is "diborane"

n. (context chemistry English) boron hydride, B₂H₆, a colourless explosive gas with a nasty smell; it has an unusual structure in which two of the hydrogen atoms form a bridge between the two boron atoms

Diborane is the chemical compound consisting of boron and hydrogen with the formula BH. It is a colorless and highly unstable gas at room temperature with a repulsively sweet odor. Diborane mixes well with air, easily forming explosive mixtures. Diborane will ignite spontaneously in moist air at room temperature. Synonyms include boroethane, boron hydride, and diboron hexahydride.

Diborane is a key boron compound with a variety of applications. The compound is classified as "endothermic", meaning that its heat of formation, ΔH° is positive (36 kJ/mol). Despite a high thermodynamic instability, diborane is surprisingly nonreactive for kinetic reasons, and it is known to take part in an extensive range of chemical transformations, many of them entailing loss of dihydrogen.

This page provides supplementary chemical data on diborane.

Diborane(4) (systematically named di-μH-catena-diborane(4) and di-μ-hydrido-bis(hydridoboron)(B—B)) is a inorganic compound with the chemical formula .

Diborane(2) is an inorganic compound having the formula BH. It has a symmetric covalently bonded structure of HBBH, with a double bond between the two boron atoms and one hydrogen atom bonded to each boron. This compound is unique among the analogous formulas for other elements of the boron group, and also unlike higher boranes such as diborane(6) (BH), in that it has a direct boron–boron bond rather than bridging hydrides. The boron–boron bonding in this compound is also a rare example of a pure pi bond, one that does not have any net sigma bonding associated with it.