Scientists have been trying to synthesize a new form of carbon known as "graphyne," but to no avail. However, scientists from the University of Colorado-Boulder announced in new research last week that they have finally created the next-generation wonder material that could open new possibilities for better electronics, optics, and semiconducting materials.
According to Science Daily, this fills a longstanding gap in carbon material science that is finally realized after decades of work and theorizing with only a few fragments that have been ever made before now.
Different Carbon Allotropes
Graphyne has long been of interest to scientists because it has a lot of similarities with the other wonder material graphene, another form of carbon that is highly valuable in material science. In fact, the groundbreaking experiments in graphene even won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010.
But even before graphene, scientists have been studying and trying to make novel carbon allotropes, or forms of carbons, because of their versatility and usefulness in the industry.
Scientists use different ways to develop carbon allotropes that can be constructed depending on how sp2, sp3, and sp hybridized carbon are used. But the most common carbon allotrope is graphite, which is used in basic everyday objects like pencils and batteries, and also diamond, which is created out of sp2 and sp3 carbon.
Moreover, other carbon allotropes created in the past decades include fullerene, which won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996. However, the methods used before do not allow new carbon allotropes to be created. That is why graphyne was left a theorized material for many years with speculated unique conducting, mechanical, and optical properties.
How Did Scientists Create Graphyne?
Graphyne is an old problem that demands a nontraditional tool. So, researchers of the new study used a process called alkaline metathesis, which is a process that entails the redistribution or cutting and forming of alkaline chemical bonds, as well as thermodynamics and kinetic control that has never been done before.
According to a similar report from Phys.org, this process is different from making graphene. It created the next-generation wonder material, which is why people are so excited for graphyne.
While the material has been successfully created, the team still wants to look into the particular details of it, including how to make the material on a large scale and how it can be manipulated.
Researchers hope to explore this novel material from multiple dimensions and see how they could create it on a massive scale. They are still figuring out how graphyne's electron-conducting and optical properties can be used for the industry, such as in batteries and optics. For now, they hope it could lower the costs of materials and simplify the procedure so people could benefit from their research.
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