The Braunschweig Group


Research in the Braunschweig group covers a wide range of organometallic and main group element chemistry. Motivation for our work arises from the fundamental interest in novel molecular species, and much emphasis lies with the elucidation of their detailed electronic structure and reactivity patterns, thus disclosing potential applications in organic synthesis, catalysis, or materials science. Commonly, sophisticated synthetic protocols, as well as state-of-the-art analytical and computational methods are applied to meet these goals. Significant achievements over the past decades were made in various independent, highly topical and competitive sub-areas of (i) organometallic chemistry such as metal boron complexes (borane, boryl, borylene, boride, oxoboryl), metallo-arenophanes, or metal-only Lewis pairs, and (ii) main group element chemistry such as novel boron heterocycles (boroles, azaborinines, etc.) and boron boron multiple bonded species (diborenes, diborynes).



The homepage for our newly-established research institute - the Institute for Sustainable Chemistry & Catalysis with Boron (ICB) is now online. 

Visit the ICB homepage.



Selected Recent Publications

  • K. Winner, A. Hermann, G. Bélanger-Chabot, O. F. González-Belman, J. O. C. Jiménez-Halla, H. Kelch, H. Braunschweig
    Cleavage of BN triple bonds by main group reagents
    Chem. Commun. 2018, 54, 8210–8213. [pdf]
  • A. Hermann, J. Cid, J. D. Mattock, R. D. Dewhurst, I. Krummenacher, A. Vargas, M. J. Ingleson, H. Braunschweig
    Diboryldiborenes: π-Conjugated B4 Chains Isoelectronic to the Butadiene Dication
    Angew. Chem. 2018, 130, 10248–10252; [pdf] Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018, 57, 10091–10095. [pdf]
  • J. Böhnke, T. Brückner, A. Hermann, O. F. González-Belman, M. Arrowsmith, J. O. C. Jiménez-Halla, H. Braunschweig
    Single and double activation of acetone by isolobal B-N and B-B triple bonds
    Chem. Sci. 2018, 9, 5354–5359. [pdf]
  • A. Hofmann, A. Lamprecht, J. O. C. Jiménez-Halla, T. Tröster, R. D. Dewhurst, C. Lenczyk, H. Braunschweig 

    Lewis-Base-Induced Disproportionation of a Dialane
    Chem. Eur. J. 2018, 24, 11795–11802. [pdf]

  • J. Böhnke, T. Dellermann, M. A. Celik, I. Krummenacher, R. D. Dewhurst, S. Demeshko, W. C. Ewing, K. Hammond, M. Heß, E. Bill, E. Welz, M. Röhr, R. Mitrić, B. Engels, F. Meyer, H. Braunschweig 
    Isolation of diborenes and their 90°-twisted diradical congeners of π-Bond Twisting and Homolysis
    Nature Communications 2018, 9, Article Number 1197. [pdf]