“…In the first step, the IBO method was validated on a series of organic and inorganic compounds with well described either covalent or multicenter bonding: ethane, elemental white phosphorus P 4 and hydrogen disulfide (containing classical, 2c2e bonding), trimethylaluminium dimer, 6 diborane, 12 and tetra-tert-butyltetrabora-tetrahedrane. 20 In the second step, we used the IBO method to investigate the nature of bonding in a series of experimentally known heteroboranes containing only up to third-row elements, specifically: closo-1-CB 11 H 12 À , 21 closo-1,2-C 2 B 10 H 12 , 22 closo-1,7-C 2 B 10 H 12 , 22 closo-1-NB 11 H 12 , 23 closo-1,2-P 2 B 10 H 10 , 24 closo-1,7-P 2 B 10 H 10 , 25 closo-1-SB 11 H 11 , 26 closo-2-CB 10 H 11 À , 27 closo-2,3- 28 closo-1-CB 9 H 10 À , 29 closo-1,2-C 2 B 8 H 10 , 30 closo-1,6-C 2 B 8 H 10 , 31 closo-1,10-C 2 B 8 H 10 , 32 closo-1-NB 9 H 10 , 33 54 The numbering of the studied cages is shown in Fig. 1.…”