Chemists isolate new boron–oxygen molecule

MIT chemists said on May 13 they had isolated a new boron–oxygen molecule that researchers had long proposed but had not previously captured as a stable, well-defined species. The compound, called dioxaborirane, was described in an open-access Nature Chemistry paper published April 24 by researchers from the laboratories of Christopher C. Cummins and Robert J. Gilliard Jr. at MIT. The newly reported species is a cyclic peroxide built around boron rather than carbon. Nature Chemistry summarized the result as the synthesis and isolation of a family of cyclic dioxaboriranes formed when diazoboranes react with molecular oxygen under mild conditions. The work matters first as a chemistry result: cyclic peroxides are reactive oxygen-containing compounds, but well-defined cyclic peroxides of main-group elements have been rare, and boron–oxygen versions had not been explored in this way before, according to the paper summary and MIT’s account. (news.mit.edu) ### What, exactly, did the team isolate? The molecule is a dioxaborirane — a highly strained three-membered ring made of one boron atom and two oxygen atoms. (nature.com) MIT said the team confirmed the structure using crystallography and computational modeling. Nature Chemistry reported not just a single fleeting intermediate but a family of cyclic dioxaboriranes, including neutral and anionic variants. (nature.com) That distinction matters because the different charge states showed different chemical behavior in follow-up tests. ### How did they make a molecule thought to be too unstable to isolate? The reaction starts from diazoboranes and oxygen gas. (news.mit.edu) The paper says reactions of diazoboranes with triplet oxygen afford cyclic dioxaboriranes under mild conditions, while MIT said the molecule forms almost instantly at room temperature when a specially engineered boron molecule reacts with oxygen gas. (nature.com) Room-temperature formation is one of the notable points in the report. MIT said strained oxygen-containing rings like this usually require very low temperatures or high pressure to prevent decomposition, while the paper’s authors wrote that computational studies help explain why these boron peroxides can form thermally. (nature.com) ### What can the new molecule do? The neutral and anionic forms do not behave the same way. Nature Chemistry said neutral dioxaboriranes act as electrophilic oxygen-atom donors, while the anionic analogue is nucleophilic and reacts with carbon dioxide. MIT described that split more plainly: one form can donate oxygen atoms to help build other compounds, and another can react with carbon dioxide. (news.mit.edu) That gives chemists two kinds of reactivity from closely related boron–oxygen frameworks. ### Who did the work? The April 24 paper lists Chonghe Zhang, Junyi Wang, Noah D. McMillion, Chun-Lin Deng, Robert J. (nature.com) Gilliard Jr. and Christopher C. Cummins as authors. MIT identified Zhang as the paper’s first author and a chemistry graduate student co-advised by Cummins and Gilliard. In MIT’s release, Zhang said that generating these compounds under mild conditions “opens the door to entirely new types of chemistry.” He added that the findings could provide tools for oxidation reactions in synthesis and materials science. (news.mit.edu) ### Where does the report leave things next? The paper goes beyond isolation and shows that cyclic dioxaboriranes can be converted into acyclic boron peroxide derivatives. (nature.com) Nature Chemistry said that result highlights opportunities to control peroxide structure and reactivity at boron. For readers who want the primary source, the full report is the April 24, 2026 Nature Chemistry article, “Reactions of diazoboranes with oxygen enables the synthesis and isolation of dioxaboriranes,” by Zhang, Wang, McMillion, Deng, Gilliard and Cummins. (news.mit.edu) MIT published its accompanying research announcement on May 13, 2026. (nature.com 1) (nature.com 2)