About 80% of this chapter is devoted to the particularly rich structural chemistry of boron. There are sections on elemental boron, metal and non-metal borides, boranes and carboranes, boric acids, and borates. In the section on boranes and carboranes, electron-counting rules are introduced to account for the relationship between the bonding and structures of these compounds. For the remaining Group 13 elements, there are sections on their organometallic compounds with novel features (such as bridged structures, M-M bonding, bonding, etc.) and on naked anionic metalloid clusters.
Keywords: icosahedron, boranes, borax, boric acid, borides, carboranes, In-In bonds, M-M bonds, metallacarboranes, thallides