Nitridoborate

The nitridoborates are chemical compounds of boron and nitrogen with metals. These compounds are typically produced at high temperature by reacting hexagonal boron nitride (α -BN) with metal nitrides or by metathesis reactions involving nitridoborates. A wide range of these compounds have been made involving lithium, alkaline earth metals and lanthanides, and their structures determined using crystallographic techniques such as X-ray crystallography. Structurally one of their interesting features is the presence of polyatomic anions of boron and nitrogen where the geometry and the B–N bond length have been interpreted in terms of π-bonding.

Many of the compounds produced can be described as ternary compounds of metal boron and nitrogen and examples of these are Li₃BN₂, Mg₃BN₃, La₃B₃N₆, La₅B₄N₉.^[1] However, there are examples of compounds with more than one metal, for example La₃Ni₂B₂N₃^[2] and compounds containing anions such as Cl⁻, for example Mg₂BN₂Cl.^[3]