[ closo -B 10 H 8 -1,10-(COOH) 2 ] 2- : a building block for functional materials?

[ closo -B 10 H 8 -1,10-(COOH) 2 ] 2- was obtained in five steps and 40% overall yield from [ closo -B 10 H 10 ] 2- . It can be converted to [ closo -B 10 H 8 -1,10-(CO) 2 ] and subsequently to carbonium ylides [ closo -B 10 H 8 -1-COOH-10-(C(NRCH 2 ) 2 )]. The diacid, its derivatives, and di-ylide [ closo -B 10 H 8 -1,10-(C(NHMe) 2 ) 2 ] are characterized by spectroscopic and single crystal XRD methods augmented with DFT results.