{"id":244960,"date":"2026-10-06T05:05:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T10:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/new-form-of-flexible-boron-is-10-million-times-more-electrically-conductive"},"modified":"2026-10-06T05:05:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T10:05:14","slug":"new-form-of-flexible-boron-is-10-million-times-more-electrically-conductive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/new-form-of-flexible-boron-is-10-million-times-more-electrically-conductive","title":{"rendered":"New form of flexible boron is 10 million times more electrically conductive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/new-form-of-flexible-boron-is-10-million-times-more-electrically-conductive2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The atoms of the 5th element of the periodic table often find themselves in the company of each other, forming allotropes with a rich variety of structural motifs, each carrying a unique set of chemical and physical properties. Despite the long catalog, most boron allotropes do not simultaneously possess high electrical conductivity and plasticity, but a recent study has expanded the portfolio.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists have now designed a new allotrope called Imma-B60 by washing out the sodium from the sodium boride compound Na4B60. Their findings are published in Nature Chemistry.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike the dense, tightly packed atomic arrangements found in standard forms of elemental boron, Imma-B60 forms a porous open framework built from 12-atom boron cages connected by 3-atom triangular boron units. This unique structure shifts internally under stress, allowing the allotrope to be flexible and deform by 23% without shattering. Imma-B60 also conducts electricity 10 million times better than the common form of boron, thanks to its very narrow bandgap of under 0.2 eV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The atoms of the 5th element of the periodic table often find themselves in the company of each other, forming allotropes with a rich variety of structural motifs, each carrying a unique set of chemical and physical properties. Despite the long catalog, most boron allotropes do not simultaneously possess high electrical conductivity and plasticity, but [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":707,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/707"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244960\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}