Electrochemistry of different boranes, carbaboranes and their exo-skeletal hydroxy derivatives at the graphite carbon electrode in aqueous phosphate buffers

Electrochemical behavior of four cluster boranes and nine derivatives of ten- and eleven-vertex cluster boranes has been studied in phosphate buffers. These compounds show promising applications in biological sciences and in biomedicine and, therefore, analytical techniques developed for their determination and analysis of their bioconjugates should be compatible with aqueous media. Results presented herein show that both endo- and exo-skeletal substitutions of cluster boranes significantly influence their electrochemical responses, such as the shape of voltammetric curves, the position of the current maximum in a potential scale, and the peak current density. Selected substitutions can be utilized to tune electrochemical properties of the boron cluster compounds in order to optimize their responses for their electroanalytical determination and their usage as labels for biopolymers.