Polyhedral boron hydrides, cage like molecules composed of boron and hydrogen atoms, hold great promise for use in the treatment of nuclear waste, cancer treatment and boron neutron capture therapy.   However, in order to be used in biological systems, these molecules need to be functionalised, through the incorporation of a functional group to the boron cage, and soluble in water.

Professor Andrey Semioshkin and colleagues, from the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia, describe in their Dalton Transactions Perspective article the numerous synthetic routes that have been recently developed for the production of cyclic oxonium derivatives of polyhedral boron hydrides, including their incorporation into biological molecules.   Semioshkin shows that this class of compounds can be made without much difficulty and in good to high yields, thus opening up the possibilities of their widespread application.   'The oxonium derivatives of polyhedral boron hydrides are easily available and very promising starting materials for the synthesis of various boronated organic and bioorganic materials', says Semioshkin.

Cyclic Oxonium Derivatives of Polyhedral Boron Hydrides