‘Fullertubes’ Join the Family of Carbon Crystals

Children write trails of carbon on paper when they see it in nature. Scientists wondered what other forms of carbon could take.

They had an answer in 1985. Buckminster Fullerenes, or buckyballs or fullerenes, were discovered by a group of chemists. geodesic domes were popularized by R. Buckminster Fuller. Researchers raced to discover properties and applications of the most beautiful molecule as a new field of chemistry sprang up around the nanometer-wide spheres.

There were bigger fullerenes. Then, a few years later, a paper by the Japanese physicist Sumio Iijima sparked interest in a related carbon form, originally dubbed buckytubes but now known as carbon nanotubes: hollow cylinders made of a honeycomb lattice of carbon atoms that's rolled up like a toilet paper

No other element seemed to match the properties of the carbon crystals. Three of the discoverers of buckyballs, Robert Curl, Harold Kroto and Richard Smalley, received the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry. The discovery of a way to make sheets of carbon atoms, known as Graphene, was the catalyst for another explosion of research that resulted in the 2010 physics prize.

A new type of carbon crystal was discovered recently. Most of the carbon experts didn't know about it. The global supply is likely to be about the mass of a few house flies.

The new carbon structures are a marriage of the two that are shaped like a medicine capsule, according to a chemist at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. The crystals have been named.

The best features of fullerenes and nanotubes are combined into one tube. It could be the worst of both. Some of the good and some of the bad from each. It's not clear how their properties will be useful. It is a place we have been before and still are.

Mining for Fullertubes

A CHEM lab the size of a living room is the center of the world of fullertubes. Stevenson and his small group of undergraduates collect and taxonomize the newfound molecule, which consists of hemispherical caps on the ends of cylinders.

The first member of the fullertube family was announced in 2020. The molecule is made of 96 and 100 carbon atoms.

Two more fullertubes were described this year by Stevenson and Dorn. Their studies show that the narrower of the pill-shaped molecule is an electrical conductor, while the longer one is a Semiconductor, meaning it could potentially be used for transistors and other electronic devices. Researchers are still exploring the optical and tensile properties of fullertubes

The new fullertubes are similar to the geometric rule that led James and his colleagues to search for fullerenes, he said. Buckyballs have the same pattern of hexagonal and octagonal shapes as a soccer ball. Extra belts of hexagons are added to the rule by fullertubes.

The same carbon soot that has been the primary source of fullerenes has been hidden by the molecule for years. Stevenson was able to pick out the tubular capsule from the more abundant fullerenes. The process he refers to as the "magical" one is to act away anything spherical. Balls and tubes are separated.

Special soot can be made by Vaporizing carbon off rods inside a chamber. As the carbon vapor cools on the chamber walls, it condenses into fullerenes and rare fullertubes, which are sprinkled like gems in a mountain of slag. Water-soluble amines are used in Stevensons magic trick. These are attracted to places with hexagonal arrangements of carbon atoms that are 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- fullertubes are partially protected from amine by their nanotube midsections, which makes them unattractive to amine. While amine bonds to fullerenes, unreacted fullertubes remain insoluble, so Stevenson can simply rinse the fullerenes away.

He uses machines that separate the molecules based on their mass and chemical differences to create pure collections of fullertubes.

ArdemisBoghossian, a chemist at the cole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, said that Steve's approach is very interesting. It's an approach that isn't normally used in our field.

The ability to separate pure, uniform samples of fullertubes makes them more attractive to potential buyers. The electrical and optical properties of fullertubes and nanotubes make them promising as components in electrical circuits or light-based sensors. Even though purity is a dream for researchers, they often work with a bunch of tubes of random lengths and diameters. Is it possible that fullertubes could overcome the hurdles that have hurt it?

Whatever Happened to Buckyballs?

Curl and Smalley imagined revolutionary applications of buckminsterfullerenes in a 1991 article. They wrote that theVersatility of bulk C 60 seemed to grow week by week.

Five years went by. The chemistry prize for discovering buckminsterfullerenes was awarded in 1996 but no practical applications have yet been produced.

None of the originally hoped for products have made it to market. Buckyballs can be found in cosmetics and supplements that claim the molecule can be used as an anti-aging agent. Several studies have shown signs of toxicity in buckyballs. One study seems to support the health benefits, at least in extending the life spans of mice exposed to ionizing radiation.

Michael Crommie is a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley. He said that buckyballs led to nanotubes.

fullerenes have had less success than nanotubes. You can pick them up at the hardware store, where they are found in "nano tape" or "gecko tape". No one has been able to make enough long nanotubes for ultra-strong cables. When mixed with fabric, nanotubes add strength. They are also used to improve the performance of some batteries.

More ground-breaking applications such as precisionnanosensors will require nanotubes that are identical to each other. Two different nanotubes will respond to the same stimuli. Uniform components are needed for electronics to function in predictable ways.

"We can't really get rid of nanotubes," saidBoghossian. Geim and Novoselov won the physics prize for isolating it, not for discovering it, but for finding an easy way to separate it.

Researchers like YuHuang Wang at the University of Maryland are working on a way to cut long nanotubes and turn them into different lengths. The approach of constructing nanotubes from the bottom up is flawed and expensive.

Crommie believes that the true potential for carbon nanomaterials will be fulfilled by Graphene with its single-layer sheets. He thinks the best way to get carbon-based electronic and magnetic devices is to trim Graphene ribbons into useful shapes.

What role could be filled by fullertubes? Stevenson and Dorn think that the crystals could be linked together like Legos to make miniature electronics.

The environment inside is studied with the help of nanotubes. The structure absorbs one color of light and emits another, and the light change reveals information about cellular conditions. The structure of the nanotubes makes it hard to interpret signals. The longer fullertubes have signs of it. She thinks that fullertubes will help with optoelectronic applications.

According to a search of academic publications, fullerenes have been mentioned in over twenty thousand papers since 2020. In 93,000, there are nanotubes. Over 200,000 citations were found in a search on Graphene. There are 94 relevant publications for fullertubes as of this writing.

If studies show properties similar to those of nanotubes, more researchers will make the leap to fullertubes. She said that it would take some adaptation because people have been working on carbon forms for their entire lives.