Boron compounds for catalytic applications

Boron-based catalysts are playing key role in synthetic chemistry for variety of chemical transformations to produce products ranging from commodity chemicals to selective pharmaceuticals. In synthetic chemistry hydrocarbon processing e.g. oxidation, reduction, selective hydrogenation, dehydrogenation, isomerization and polymerization are very important. Nowadays, it is almost impossible to drive any industrial chemical process without catalysts. Cheaper earth-abundant catalysts urge to replace the inherited high-cost noble metals-based catalysts. Therefore, boron-based catalysts are potentially cost-effective candidates to switch the conventional expansive catalysts. The primary focus of the current study is to get an overview of the contributions of boron-based compounds as catalysts. Chemically, boron is a strong Lewis acid having an empty p-orbital and is electrophilic, which forms coordinate covalent bonds with nucleophiles. Applications of boron-based compounds as Frustrated Lewis Pairs (FLPs) catalysts which are combination of Lewis acidic and basic p-block species and sterically incapable to neutralize each other's reactivity through adduct formation, have become an attractive strategy in the field of catalysis. This chapter briefly introduces the basics of catalysis with the focus on heterogeneous catalysis of boron-based compounds, which is dynamic toolbox in synthetic chemistry. Common synthetic strategies of boron-based catalysts are also discussed as they are being applied in a growing number of transformations by performing comparably or even better than the gold standard catalysts and have gained special attention in photo-, electro- and thermal catalysis.