English Deutsch Français Italiano Español Português 繁體中文 Bahasa Indonesia Tiếng Việt ภาษาไทย
All categories

2007-10-28 18:07:27 · 2 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics Chemistry

2 answers

It's actually called buckminster fullerene, or bucky balls for short. As far as I know scientists have not found a real world application for them yet. They have expanded our knowledge, by showing another way carbon atoms can bind together in a molecule, and it seems that this knowledge has led to the development of carbon nanotubes, and other potential nanotechnologies.

2007-10-28 18:52:53 · answer #1 · answered by jellybeanchick 7 · 0 0

Backminster Fullerene is the alternate name for Bucky Balls.
Bucky balls are based on sixty coordinates all based on phi
Bucky balls are named after Buckminster Fuller, who popularized the geodesic dome. The shape defined by Bucky balls is also found in the Carbon 60 molecule, a form of pure carbon with 60 atoms in a nearly spherical configuration, the truncated icosahedron and soccer balls.

Bucky balls consist of 60 points on the surface of a spherical shape where the distance from any point to its nearest neighboring three points on the sphere is identical for all points.

USE :
Carbon nanotubes

Nanotubes are cylindrical fullerenes. These tubes of carbon are usually only a few nanometres wide, but they can range from less than a micrometre to several millimetres in length. They often have closed ends, but can be open-ended as well. There are also cases in which the tube reduces in diameter before closing off. Their unique molecular structure results in extraordinary macroscopic properties, including high tensile strength, high electrical conductivity, high ductility, high resistance to heat, and relative chemical inactivity (as it is cylindrical and 'planar' — that is, it has no 'exposed' atoms that can be easily displaced). One proposed use of carbon nanotubes is in paper batteries , developed in 2007 by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Boron buckyball
A new type of buckyball utilizing boron atoms instead of the usual carbon has been predicted and described by researchers at Rice University. The B-80 structure is predicted to be more stable than the C-60 buckyball. One reason for this given by the researchers is that the B-80 is actually more like the original geodesic dome structure popularized by Buckminster Fuller which utilizes triangles rather than hexagons.


Mathematics behind fullerenes
In mathematical terms, the structure of a fullerene is a trivalent convex polyhedron with pentagonal and hexagonal faces. In graph theory, the term fullerene refers to any 3-regular, planar graph with all faces of size 5 or 6 (including the external face). It follows from Euler's polyhedron formula, |V|-|E|+|F| = 2, (where |V|, |E|, |F| indicate the number of vertices, edges, and faces), that there are exactly 12 pentagons in a fullerene and |V|/2-10 hexagons.

The smallest fullerene is the dodecahedron--the unique C20, dodecahedrane. There are no fullerenes with 22 vertices. The number of fullerenes C2n grows with increasing n = 12,13,14..., roughly in proportion to n9. For instance, there are 1812 non-isomorphic fullerenes C60. Note that only one form of C60, the buckminsterfullerene alias truncated icosahedron, has no pair of adjacent pentagons (the smallest such fullerene). To further illustrate the growth, there are 214,127,713 non-isomorphic fullerenes C200, 15,655,672 of which have no adjacent pentagons.

Scientific fun and games

The emergence of the buckyball and its cousins has been a stimulus to both scientific research and the human imagination, although we are yet to see any practical applications (Box 2: The many potential uses of fullerenes). One day, perhaps, they will have a major impact on our lives. In the meantime, hundreds or even thousands of chemists, physicists and molecular biologists in laboratories around the world continue to play molecular football with these most intriguing of structures.

2007-10-29 04:32:17 · answer #2 · answered by sb 7 · 0 0

fedest.com, questions and answers