Buckyball
The buckyball was founded by a British chemist named Harry Kroto in 1985. Harry flew to the US laboratory of Richard Smalley and Robert Curl. In the lab, the two studied ‘clusters’. Clusters are aggregates of atoms that only exist briefly. They vaporized graphite with a powerful laser in an atmosphere of helium gas. After they analyzed the carbon clusters, they found all kinds of sizes, but the most common molecule held 60 carbon atoms. The molecule was not apparent immediately, but they knew that it was very stable. Only a spherical molecule could make the stability. They discovered that the combination of pentagons and hexagons formed the basis geodesic dome created by R. Buckminster Fuller. They then named the molecule buckminster-fullerene, which is also known as the buckyball. The announcement of their discovery caused great interest in the scientific community. In 1996, Curl, Kroto and Smalley were awarded the Nobel Prize.
The buckyball can be compared to a soccer ball. They both have 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons. The buckyball spins faster then a regular soccer ball. It spins at about 100 million times per second. If you squeeze and release a buckyball it will return to its original size. They will bounce of hard surfaces such as steel.
The buckyball is the most famous but is not the only one. Scientists have now discovered hundreds of different combinations of the interlocking pentagons/hexagon formations. ‘Buckybabies’ are spheroid carbon molecules containing fewer than 60 carbon atoms. ‘Fuzzyballs’ are C60 buckyballs with 60 hydrogen atoms added. ‘Giant fullerenes’ are fullerenes obtaining hundreds of carbon atoms. C70 are molecules with 70 carbon atoms which turns the soccer ball shape of the buckyball to a rugby football.
In 1990, German and American scientists made larger quantities of buckyballs. At high temperatures, they heated graphite rods by passing an electric current between...
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