Everything about Triethylborane totally explained
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Triethylborane (
TEB), also called
triethylborine and
triethylboron, is an
organoborane (an
organometallic compound), a near-colorless to yellowish transparent liquid with pungent
ether-like odor. Its chemical formula can be written as C
6H
15B, or (CH
3CH
2)
3B, or (C
2H
5)
3B, or Et
3B.
Triethylborane is strongly
pyrophoric, igniting spontaneously in air. It burns intensely with a very hot flame. The color of the flame is apple-green, which is characteristic for boron compounds. Its fire shouldn't be extinguished with water; a carbon dioxide or dry powder extinguisher (eg.
Purple K) would be more suitable. Its vapors may cause
flash fire.
It is soluble in
tetrahydrofuran and
hexane, and isn't pyrophoric when in solution. However the solution can slowly react with atmospheric moisture. If the TEB solutions are exposed to air for prolonged time, unstable
organic peroxides may form, with the presence of cationic initiators leading to
polymerization. It is toxic to
peripheral nervous system,
kidneys and
testes. Triethylborane is extremely
corrosive. Some sources incorrectly refer to this chemical as
tetraethylborane.
Applications
Triethylborane was used to ignite the
JP-7 fuel in the
Pratt & Whitney J58 turbojet/
ramjet engines powering the
Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, and its predecessor
A-12 OXCART. Triethylborane is suitable for this because of its
pyrophoric properties, especially the fact that it burns with very high temperature. It was chosen as an ignition method for reliability reasons, because the
JP-7 fuel has very low volatility and is difficult to ignite. Classical ignition plugs posed too high risk of a malfunction. It is used in 50 cm
3 doses to start up each engine and to light the
afterburners.
Industrially, triethylborane is used as an
initiator in
radical reactions, where it's effective even at low temperatures. As an initiator, it can replace some
organotin compounds. It reacts with metal
enolates, yielding enoxytriethylborates with use in selective
alkylation and
aldol reactions. It is also used in reduction
bond cleavage with lithium tri-
tert-butoxyaluminohydride, in preparation of various
boron compounds,
deoxygenation of primary and secondary
alcohols, rapid determination of
-OH groups in organic compounds, dehydration of salt and sugar
hydrates, determination of water content in crystalline hydrate compounds, in a variant of
Reformatskii reaction, and has a range of other uses in
organoborane chemistry.
Triethylborane is used in
vapor deposition techniques as a boron source. Examples are the plasma deposition of boron-containing hard carbon films, silicon nitride-boron nitride films, and for
doping of
diamond film with boron. Other boron precursors used for such applications are eg.
trimethylborane,
boron trifluoride,
diborane, and
decaborane.
Sodium tetraethyl borate (NaTEB), a triethylboron derivative, is used as a powerful ethylation agent.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Triethylborane'.
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