New Carbon Crystal Member Alert: How Fullertubes Joined The Family

Another sort of carbon crystal was found by chemists, albeit it received considerably less attention this time. Most of the carbon specialists we spoke to for this story had never heard of it. And as of now, the entire world's supply is probably only a few milligrams or maybe a handful of house flies. The fullertubes is the name of it.

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(Photo : NASA Goddard/CI Lab/Dan Gallagher)
Conceptual image of meteoroids delivering nucleobases to ancient Earth. The nucleobases are represented by structural diagrams with hydrogen atoms as white spheres, carbon as black, nitrogen as blue and oxygen as red.

These most recent carbon structures resemble a medicine capsule. They are "a nanoscale marriage" of cylindrical nanotubes and spherical fullerenes, according to Harry Dorn, a chemist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University who works with Purdue University's Steven Stevenson, who made the initial discovery of the molecules. The crystals' name, given by Stevenson and Dorn, is fullertubes.

The greatest qualities of fullerenes and nanotubes are combined in fullertubes. The worst of both, perhaps. Depending on whoever you ask, there may be a mixture of both the good and bad. It needs to be observed how or if their properties will be helpful. We have likely been there previously and may still be there, given the famed carbon cousins of fullertubes.

Fullertubes Join Carbon Family

Steven Stevenson of Purdue University and Harry Dorn, a chemist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University first discovered fullertubes, Quanta Magazine said.

To be exact, Dorn and Stevenson found a 90-atom fullertube molecule, which is effectively two buckyball halves joined by a 30-atom nanotube midsection. They found two more molecular siblings, each with 96 or 100 carbon atoms.

The molecules have been hidden in the same unique carbon soot that has long been the main source of fullerenes beneath scientists' noses. However, Stevenson discovered a method in 2020 for separating the tubular capsules from the far more plentiful fullerenes. To "react away anything spherical," as he describes it, is the "magical" process. Therefore, we distinguish tubes from balls.

Stevenson and Dorn described two fullertubes, each containing 120 carbon atoms, this year in a study published in ACS Publications. Their research reveals that while the larger, shorter pill-shaped molecules are intriguingly a semiconductor, suggesting it may be utilized for transistors and other electronic devices, the narrower one is electrically conductive. The researchers are presently examining the variety of optical and tensile characteristics that fullertubes exhibit.

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Role of Fullertubes

What function, if any, may fullertubes play in this scenario? Stevenson and Dorn speculated in the same Quanta Magazine that because the crystals are consistent and may be either conductors or semiconductors, they can one day be connected like nanoscale Legos to create tiny circuits.

To better understand the environment inside cells, Boghossian inserts nanotubes. She uses nanotube fluorescence, in which the structures absorb one color of light and release another, and the resulting shift in light color exposes details about the state of the cells. However, since the shape of the nanotubes affects fluorescence, signals are more difficult to decipher. The longer fullertubes glow, whilst the shorter ones do not. Her study may benefit if even longer fullertubes glow more intensely. She predicted that it would be very beneficial for optoelectronic applications.

A review of academic journals found that since 2020, fullerenes have been cited in around 22,700 works. In 93,000, nanotubes are present. Some people may find over 200,000 citations for graphene through a search. As of this writing, there have been 94 publications pertinent to fullertubes.

What Happened to Buckyballs?

Curl and Smalley envisioned ground-breaking uses for buckminsterfullerenes in a 1991 article in Scientific American, including novel, carbon-based superconductors, electronics, and lubricants. They said, "The adaptability of bulk C60 seems to grow week by week."

There were five years. The Nobel Prize committee stated in a 1996 press release that Curl, Kroto, and Smalley had won the chemistry prize for discovering buckminsterfullerenes that "no practically useful applications have yet been produced," but that "this is not to be expected as early as six years after macroscopic quantities of fullerenes became available."

None of the previously anticipated items have reached the market 25 years later. The only commercial applications for buckyballs are in cosmetics and nutritional supplements that promote the molecule's antioxidant properties. However, neither product needs FDA clearance, and buckyballs have been linked to harm in multiple studies.