Borazine or Borazole preparation and its reactivity

What is borazine ? 

Boron forms some interesting inorganic compounds with nitrogen, most important of which is a borazine compound with the chemical formula B₃N₃H₆ .

Borazine is a colorless volatile liquid and it is also called borazole.

3D STRUCTURE OF BORAZINE OR BORAZOLE

Preparation of borazine .

Borazine can be prepared by heating together boron trichloride and ammonium chloride. The initial product formed is trichloroborazine which on reducing with sodium borohydride yields borazine.

    borontrichloride                                          Trichloroborazine                                              

      

Borazine is also formed by the interaction of diborane and ammonia .

Why borazine is also called inorganic benzene ?

The structure of borazine is similar to that of benzene. In borazine, each boron atom and nitrogen atoms are sp2 hybridised like carbon atoms in benzene.

The π bonding in borazine is dative and is arises from the sidewise overlapping of fully filled p- orbitals of nitrogen and empty p- orbitals of  boron like π-bond in benzene 

which formed by sidewise overlapping of  two p orbitals of two carbon atoms. 

Like benzene, borazine is a colourless liquid.

The compound is isoelectronic with benzene. Because of the above similarity of the structures of borazine and benzene, borazine is also known as inorganic benzene. 

                 

Why borazine is more reactive than benzene ? 

Borazine is more reactive than benzene towards electrophilic aromatic substitution reaction.

Because, borazine is a highly polar molecule due to high electronegativity difference between boron and nitrogen atom.

So the pi bonds in borazine are high polarised than pi bonds in benzene. Thus borazine is more reactive than benzene.

Summary :

What is borazine or borazole ?
Why borazine is more reactive than benzene ?
Why borazine is also called inorganic benzene ? 

What is valence bond theory ?click here.