ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 9 side, where it interacts with the native oxide. All steps take place in a protective atmosphere. To characterize the samples, the team uses an analysis technique unique to Switzerland: hard x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. This method uses high-energy x-rays to determine the type and chemical state of atoms in a material, not just on the top surface, but up to 20 nm deep. This is enough to detect the 5-nm-thick oxide layer and the interface with the steel underneath. Although hydrogen itself cannot be directly detected with this method, the researchers have already been able to demonstrate its effects on the oxide layer. www.empa.ch. USING BORON TO REPLACE METAL CATALYSTS Researchers at the University of Würzburg, Germany, are developing methods to eliminate toxic heavy metals used in the chemical industry. The team led by chemistry professor Holger Braunschweig is investigating the metal-mimetic properties of main group elements such as boron. They have shown that under certain conditions, boron can mimic the reaction behavior of metals without being toxic or as expensive as metals. The new research shows that boron can also form so-called π complexes with olefins, which are similar in their properties and behavior to the complexes of transition metals with olefins. “Our discovery opens up a new area of the periodic table for π coordination chemistry, including the possibility of using main group elements as industrial catalysts for functionalization reactions of unsaturated hydrocarbons,” says Braunschweig. Traditional coordination complexes of olefins with metals (le ) and the newly-discovered olefin coordination complexes with boron (right). Courtesy of Rian Dewhurst/ Universität Würzburg. “Our main goal is to replace toxic and costly heavy metals in industrial processes with main group elements.” Next, the team wants to modify the boron-olefin π complexes so that their behavior is even more like that of the known metal complexes. www.uni-wuerzburg.de.
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