19 Boron Tribromide Uses : Facts You Should Know!

BBr₃ is a toxic liquid (2.11~2.147 g/cm³) having boron (B) and bromine (Br). It acts as a strong Lewis acid due to the vacant P orbital on boron atom. Let us see the uses of BBr₃.

Boron tribromide (BBr₃) is trigonal planar in shape with D_3h point group. Its uses in different fields are listed below.

• Electronic industry
• Organic Synthesis
• Photovoltaic Manufacturing.
• Alkali Industry
• Image Processing
• Pharmaceutical industry

Boron tribromide (BBr₃) is an important industrial chemical that is used as a Lewis acid catalyst in the chemical vapor deposition processes. This article focuses on the different applications of boron tribromide in different fields as listed above in detail.

Electronic Industry

• The electronics industry uses boron tribromide in pre-deposition processes for doping in the manufacture of semi-conductors.
• BBr₃, due to its Lewis acidic nature, acts as a liquid boron source to create a P-type impurity in silicon substrates.  
• BBr₃ is used as a doping material. For high impurity concentration at the silicon surface, boron as a dopant is inserted in the silicon semiconductor body through the vapor solid diffusion method.
• In carbon allotrope’s semiconductors at a high scale BBr₃ is used. It provides high-quality boron-doped graphene through a Wurtz-type reductive coupling reaction.

Organic Synthesis

• BBr₃ is used to form complex organoboron compounds through electrophilic aromatic borylation reactions. It also acts as a catalyst in the manufacture of high purity boron and diborane.
• As a reagent for anti-Markovnikov hydroboration BBr₃ is used for unsymmetrical alkenes.
• BBr₃ is the most common dealkylated agent that is used to break etheric bonds under mild reaction conditions.
• BBr₃ reacts with ethereal oxygens through electron deficient boron and promotes the cleavage of the C–O bond to form alkyl bromide and an alkoxy borane that is further hydrolyzed to -OH containing compounds.
• BBr₃ is applicable to break acetals bonds which can not be deprotected by usual acidic conditions.
• BBr₃ act as a deprotecting agent that can deprotect carbohydrate derivatives and polyoxygenated intermediates in the synthesis of vernomenin, vernolepin and deoxy vernolepin.
• BBr₃ plays an important role in the cationic rearrangement reactions due to the presence of vacant p orbital on boron which make it electron deficient.
• As a Lewis acid catalyst, boron tri bromide finds applications in olefin polymerization and in Friedel-Crafts chemistry.

Photovoltaic Manufacturing

• Liquid Boron tribromide is used to fabricate p-type emitter in n-type dopant source for multi -crystalline Si solar cells.
• BBr₃ is used to manufacture the boron emitter for n- type Silicone solar cells through the thermal diffusion method. During BBr₃ diffusion, boron precipitated in n- type crystalline silicon solar cells.

Alkali Industry

• BBr₃ is widely used as a raw material in the soda industry for the preparation of Soda ash by the Trona Process, caustic soda and other soda products.
• BBr₃ is used in the glass industry, chemical industry, light industry, textile, bleaching, dyeing, metallurgy, petroleum processing, and food products indirectly through these soda products.

Image Processing

Boron tribromide plays an important role in image processing and image analysis to enhance the quality of a picture.

Pharmaceutical industry

• BBr₃ is used as a reagent in the synthesis of 8-hydroxyquinolato compounds which is further used as electron transport materials in electro luminescent devices.
• BBr₃ produces organic molecule-DNA hybrid structures with micrometer dimensions.
• BBr₃ is used to produce luminescent polystyrene derivatives by reacting with sterically protected carbazolylborane moieties.

Conclusion

BBr₃ can use as doping material in silicon semi – conductor to increase conductivity by generating p-type impurities. The vacant P orbital on boron of BBr₃ makes it most commonly used as a dealkylation or demethylation agent in organic synthesis. Overall, BBr₃ is a potential candidate for various industries.