William Lipscomb’s Contributions to Chemistry

William Lipscomb is an American inorganic chemist who was awarded the Noble Prize in chemistry in 1976 for his outstanding contributions to the study of the bonding and structure of the boranes compounds. Boranes are compounds of Boron and Hydrogen which are also called electron deficient compounds because Boron has three electrons, but four orbital. Boranes are finding increasing use in chemistry as well as industry as reagents which can be used in the preparation of other compounds. Boranes compounds have found to be useful in NMR and promising as fuels for high speed jets. William Lipscomb’s work led to a better understanding of bonding at the atomic level and he also used the same techniques to study carboranes, which are compounds consisting of Boron and Carbon atoms. This very brief essay presents the significance of William N. Lipscomb’s contribution to chemistry.