Sodium borohydride, also known as sodium tetrahydridoborate, and sodium tetrahydroborate[2] is an inorganic compound with the formula NaBH4. This white solid, usually encountered as a powder, is a versatile reducing agent that finds wide application in chemistry, both in the laboratory and on a technical scale. Large amounts are used for bleaching wood pulp.[3][4] The compound is soluble in alcohols and certain ethers but reacts with water in the absence of a base.[5]
The compound was discovered in the 1940s by H. I. Schlesinger, who led a team that developed metal borohydrides for wartime applications (in particular, looking for a uranium compound more volatile than the hexafluoride to be used in isotope separation by gaseous diffusion; this line of research did not pan out).[6] Their work was declassified and published only in 1953.