Fullerenes

A detailed Summary of Fullerenes


Natural Carbons can usually exist in several forms. The most common are Graphite and diamond, but most people don't know that there is a third type-fullerenes. Many have mistaken these fullerenes for a "new type of carbon." Fullerenes have been discovered in interstellar dust as well as in geological formations on Earth, but they are very new to us. As with many important scientific discoveries, Fullerenes were discovered by accident. The C60 molecule was discovered by Harold Kroto, James Heath, Sean O'Brien, Robert Curl, and Richard Smalley in 1985. The group actually tried to understand the absorption spectra of interstellar dust, which they suspected to be related to some kind of long-chained carbon molecules. Unfortunately they could not solve that problem. But their work was not completely unsuccessful, since in the course of their experiments they discovered the Buckyball, which gathered so much excitement among scientists and won Curl, Kroto, a


Chemically, Fullerenes are actually very stable. To break these molecules you'd have to have temperatures of over 1000 degrees. At much lower temperatures fullerenes will do what is known as "sublime." This means that vapor will form directly from the solid. These molecules do not break they just separate from the solid intact.

The thing that is most interesting about these new carbons is that they have a number of uses. As one example shows, Fullerenes have been used as lubricants because the tiny balls can roll between surfaces. Studies later found that pure fullerenes are not good for this; they must be changed chemically first by having other atoms bonded around the ball. Another use is that fullerenes turn out to have strong optical effects. This means that they can change their properties with the aid of irradiation with light. Something like this could be extremely useful in photolithography. Overall fullerenes are found interesting because they are not like any other m

Some common words found in the essay are:
Nobel Prize, Chemically Fullerenes, Natural Carbons, Richard Smalley, Vatican Library, C80 Fullerene, Buckminster Fuller, Probably Archimedes, c60 molecule, Kroto Smalley, symmetry operations, interstellar dust, fullerenes discovered,

Approximate Word count = 666
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Science

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