It wasn’t until 1999 that chemists had proof of a metallaboratrane complex; they have made many based on sulfur, phosphorus and nitrogen donors since. Now, UK chemists, hoping to make potential hydrogen storage materials have investigated the way hydride ions might migrate within a structure.

They made a zerovalent platinum complex expecting it to be trigonal bipyramidal like earlier examples but it had pincer-like coordination leading to a square-planar structure offering important clues about the structure of these materials and perhaps how they might be modified.

• Unexpected pincer-type coordination (3-SBS) within a zerovalent platinum metallaboratrane complex
  G. R. Owen, P. H. Gould, A. Hamilton, N. Tsoureas,
  Dalton Trans. 2010, 39, 49.
  DOI: 10.1039/b917733g