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A hard glassy solid or white powder with the chemical formula B2O3. It is almost always in amorphous form (that’s glassy) but can crystallize under intense heat. It is used as a flux for glass and enamels and in combination with silica to make heat-resistant borosilicate glasses for cooking ware, etc. It is also a starting material for synthesising other boron compounds such as boron carbide.
Boron is a semi-metallic element that behaves differently from metals in many ways. For example, it is very stiff and has very high melting points and boiling/sublimation points, and it possesses unique optical characteristics such as its ability to transmit parts of infrared light. It is available as the mineral ulexite, which demonstrates these properties in beautiful crystals.
Chemically, boron oxide is unreactive towards most common reagents. It does, however, react with water to give boric acid B3O3*3H2O, and it is hygroscopic.
The structure of amorphous boron oxide is thought to consist of infinite chains of boroxol rings, six-membered rings composed of alternating 3-coordinate boron and 2-coordinate oxygen atoms. Initial ab initio density functional calculations suggest that the boron atoms bond strongly with oxygen and weakly with hydrogen. The crystalline form of boron oxide, which forms upon extensive annealing of amorphous boron oxide, is much more stable and crystallises into a tetrahedral structure. The stoichiometry of both the amorphous and crystalline forms is close, suggesting a strong covalent character for the bonding. The amorphous form of boron oxide is also slightly soluble in cold water, and finely ground crystalline boron oxide is moderately soluble in alcohol and glycerol.