DailyDirt: Allotropes Of Carbon
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Most people are familiar with graphite and diamonds, but elemental carbon comes in plenty of other forms. Buckyballs weren't discovered until 1985, but since then, all kinds of fullerene structures and carbon nanotubes have been made. And maybe we haven't found all the different kinds of carbon yet. Here are just a few links on some of them.- Carbon nanofoam can exhibit magnetic properties temporarily. This form of carbon is a spongy solid, and it was first made in a lab in 2004 using pulsed lasers that create a web of carbon tubes at temperatures exceeding 10,000°C. [url]
- A linear form of carbon (called carbyne or linear acetylenic carbon) could be strangely strong, exotic material. However, it's not easy to come by carbyne chains that are more than a few dozen atoms long (so far). [url]
- There's a patented process for making chaoite -- the naturally-occurring mineral form of carbon found near meteorite impacts. The exact structure of chaoite is not well known, but the patent office still granted a patent for making the stuff. [url]
Filed Under: allotrope, buckyball, carbon, carbyne, chaoite, chemistry, diamond, fullerenes, linear acetylenic carbon, materials, nanofoam, science
