Carbon and nitrogen are well known for their triple bonds, but making stable compounds with a triple bond between two boron atoms hadn’t been achieved despite the computational possibilities. Until now. Holger Braunschweig of the Institute for Inorganic Chemistry at Julius-Maximilians-Universität in Würzburg, Germany, and colleagues found that reacting a bis(N-heterocyclic carbene) stabilised tetrabromodiborane with either two or four equivalents of sodium naphthalenide, a single electron reducing agent, generates a diborene or diboryne compound, which they isolated and characterised. Their analysis confirms a linear, halogen-free compound with a boron-boron triple bond.1 The formation of triple bonds among the lighter main...