Fullerenes

Rationale: I chose to do fullerenes because I read a short summary on them and thought the topic sounded interesting. Also I went on the sites located at the bottom of our first page of the packet and went through the topics and their summaries. I wrote a list of topics I thought would be interesting to look into and research. I was thinking about doing the law of falling bodies but I talked to Ms. Marston and decided to do fullerenes as my topic. I found the topic very interesting and fascinating. It made me really enjoy chemistry and look at it from a new perspective. How have buckminsterfullerenes impacted society' How are fullerenes related to physical science' Fullerenes are a part of organic chemistry and we did a chemistry unit. Also we learnt about covalent bonds and electrons and atoms. Fullerenes have carbon atoms that form covalent bonds in which electrons are shared between the bonding atoms. Also fullerenes have a valence electron configuration of carbon is described as 2s2 2p2. That shows that the carbon atom shares more electrons to achieve the stable noble gas configuration than other nonmetals. Fullerenes are a form of a carbon molecule that consists of a spherical, ellipsoid or cylindrical arrangement of carbon atoms. We also studied the boiling point of elements and the boiling point of fullerenes sublimes at 800k. The resistivity is 1,014 ohms. Plus many fullerenes have been discovered in carbon soot and uncovered by electron microscopy. Overall there are many reasons why fullerenes relate to physical science. The best way they are related are by the fact that they are a part of chemistry and we did a chemistry unit so it ties into everything we learnt during that unit. Since fullerenes were discovered they have not caused much technological advancements. Currently fullerenes are not yet used commercially, though ways to commercially use them are being researched. For example, they are trying to use it in catalytic methane activation to higher hydrocarbons which is funded by the US Department of energy. Also the world’s first computer controlled fullerene production plant is now operating at the MER Corporation. They pioneered the first commercial production of fullerene and fullerene products. How did fullerenes impact the economy' Fullerenes have not made a huge impact on the economy. Fullerenes have impacted the economy by the US energy department funding the research for fullerenes. Otherwise fullerenes have not really impacted the economy in any other way since fullerenes are not commercially used. Though once they figure out how to use fullerenes commercially I’m sure it will benefit the economy greatly. What are the environmental consequences of fullerenes' Fullerenes do not cause any harm to the environment. In nature there is not a great abundance of fullerenes and scientists are trying to commercially form fullerenes in greater abundance. Otherwise fullerenes have been reported from terrestrial meteoritic sources but only at low concentrations. Otherwise fullerenes do not have much contact with the environment so there are not any major consequences known to mankind. General Questions: What do fullerenes look like' Fullerenes are a form of carbon molecule that is not graphite or diamond. They consist of spherical, ellipsoid or cylindrical arrangements of carbon atoms. The spherical fullerene looks a lot like a hollow soccer ball. The C60 molecule has two bonds lengths, the ring bonds are 6:6 or 6:5 and the 6:6 ring bonds can be considered “double bonds” but shorter than the 6:5. C60 is not “super aromatic” as it has a tendency to avoid double bonds in the pentagonal rings, which often results in bad electron delocalization. Some fullerenes are called “Buckytubes” and “Buckyonions”. Buckytubes are tubes of carbon many thousands of times long as they are wide, and they also have an icosahedra structure. Their diameters are as small as 2nm. Buckyonions consist of carbon cages one inside the other, like an onions layers or a Russian doll. All these carbon particles have millions of microscopic atoms and most of them have been observed with dozens of concentric shells. How were they discovered and by whom' How do you produce fullerenes' There are many ways to produce fullerenes. For example there is the original way in which laser energy was used to vaporize a sample of an element, which was then blown into a mass spectrometer by a stream of helium for analysis. Then later in 1990 they made the carbon clusters by passing an electric current through a graphite electrode in a low-pressure helium atmosphere which creates buckyballs, a type of fullerene. Although many mechanisms have been described, only the “pentagon road” appears to explain high yields of C60. There is a method of fullerene synthesis which results in first the magenta C60 then the red C70. In nature fullerenes occur only in small amounts, but several different ways for producing them in greater volumes have been suggested. The most modern technique uses a benzene flame to produce fullerenes at costs less than $1,500/g. Other ways include the vaporization of graphite rods and catalytic chemical vapor deposition from ethanol vapor. How have fullerenes been portrayed throughout history' Throughout history fullerenes have almost been thought of as an impossible carbon form and almost like a joke to everyone else. For the longest time chemists have only known two allotropes, pure forms, or carbon: graphite, a greasy, electrically conducting black substance and diamond, crystal clear, electrically insulating, and almost harder than any other solid. In 1970 a Japanese chemist named Osawa wrote of a molecule that would be made of 60 carbon atoms, and it would be a stable, spherical molecule. About a decade later the same idea occurred to Orville L. Chapman, an organic chemist at the University of California. He in the end created carbon 60 but could not synthesize it or create a large enough example. He also did not publish his idea so is not credited for the discovery. What does the family fullerene uniquely poses' The fullerene family of carbon molecules poses a range of amazing properties. A fullerene nanotube has tensile strength about 20 times that of high-strength steel alloys, and a density half that of aluminum. Carbon nanotubes demonstrate superconductive properties and single nanotubes up to 4centimeters in length have been synthesized. The reason that carbon is in so many molecules of interest to modern and past scientists lies within its electronic structure. The carbon atom forms covalent bonds, where electrons are shared between the bonding atoms. The valence electron configuration of carbon is 2s2 2p2. That shows that the carbon atom shares more electrons to achieve the stable noble gas configuration than any other nonmetal. Also C60 has a tendency of avoiding having double bonds within the pentagonal rings which makes electron delocalization poor and results in the fact that c60 is not super aromatic. C60 behaves very much like an electron deficient alkene and readily reacts with electron rich species but also sometimes behaves like aromatic rings.