What are Fullerenes?
Natural carbon can exist in several forms. Most people know about graphite and diamond, but there is a third type– fullerenes. Sometimes these are mistakenly called a “new form of carbon”; in fact, fullerenes have been found to exist in interstellar dust as well as in geological formations on Earth. They are only new to us. Fullerenes are large carbon-cage molecules. By far the most common one is C60– also called a “buckyball”– but some other relatively common ones are C70, C76, and C84 (there are plenty of others too). Fullerene cages are about 7-15 angstroms in diameter (that’s around a billionth of a meter, or 6-10 times the diameter of a typical atom). In atomic terms, they are enormous– a compound such as K3C60 looks like a stack of bowling balls (the C60’s) with marbles poured between them. But fullerenes are still small compared to many organic molecules. Chemically, they are quite stable; breaking the balls requires temperatures of over 1000 degrees C (the exact number depe
Fullerenes are a form of carbon molecule that is neither graphite nor diamond. They consist of a spherical, ellipsoid, or cylindrical arrangement of dozens of carbon atoms. Fullerenes were named after Richard Buckminster Fuller, an architect known for the design of geodesic domes which resemble spherical fullerenes in appearance. (A spherical fullerene looks like a soccer ball.) Spherical fullerenes are often called “buckyballs” whereas cylindrical fullerenes are known as “buckytubes”, or “nanotubes”. Fullerenes were discovered as an unexpected surprise during laser spectroscopy experiments at Rice University in September 1985. The 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Professors Robert F. Curl, Jr., Richard E. Smalley, and Sir Harold W. Kroto for their discovery. Fullerene molecules consist of 60, 70, or more carbon atoms, unlike diamond and graphite, the more familiar forms of carbon. Fullerenes occur only in small amounts naturally, but several techniques for producing them i
Fullerene is a molecule full of carbon and it takes the shape of a sphere, tube or an ellipsoid. Numerous Carbon atoms are arranged in these forms and… • Mouth Ulcers – Leads to and Therapy of Mouth Ulcer Mouth ulcers are quite typical. Mouth ulcers are painful, bothersome and oftentimes embarrassing. They are red breaks in the lining of your mouth. The… • Varicose and Spider Veins – Laser Vein Treatments Varicose veins are the bluish, twisted, enlarged, bulging veins going below the skin surface and will appear anywhere on the physique, although probab…
