Buckyball applications

The hoped-for applications of fullerenes have not materialised as yet. A cartoon published in America soon after the discovery shows a hapless hero sinking into a vat full of buckyballs (another name for fullerenes) with their very low friction. It is not known how the hero managed to escape... 

Aldersey-Williams, JJugh. The Most Beautiful Molecule The Discovery of the Buckyball. New York Wiley, 1995. Scientific discoveries are often based on a complicated series of events. This book tells the lively tale of the discovery of buckminsterfullerenes (also known as buckyballs), and discusses their potential applications. 

Larger, nonspherical assemblies of carbon atoms have also been prepared, some with a tubular shape. These so-called nanotubes can be viewed as a rolled-up graphite sheet, perhaps capped with half of a buckyball in some cases. Nanotubes have many potential applications. They may be useful in constructing faster and smaller electronic devices because they can be doped to become semiconducting or metallic and they can be made to carry electrical current at higher densities than metals. They can also be spun into incredibly strong fibers. However, before they can reach their true potential, methods to produce them inexpensively must be developed. 

Given that on the nanoscale, the properties of matter depend on size, it can be asked, how well do we understand the environmental health and safety risks of nanomaterials For example, can material safety data sheets developed for bulk graphite be used for nano-based carbon materials such as carbon nanotubes or buckyballs What necessary measures are needed to ensure that the implications of nanomaterials are well understood as these materials are developed and applied in a wide range of applications Furthermore, what can be done to reduce the uncertainties in our understanding of the environmental health and safety implications of nanotechnology ... 

Shell Oil, investigating Ziegler-Natta polymerization, and marrying in 1968. Smalley left Shell to pursue graduate studies and completed his Ph.D. in 1973 with Elliot R. Bernstein (1941- ) at Princeton. As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago, Smalley collaborated with Donald H. Levy (1939- ) and Lennard Wharton on low-temperature spectroscopy studies that led to supersonic laser-beam spectroscopy. He joined the Rice University faculty in 1976, attracted in part by the laser studies of Robert F. Curl, Jr. The apparatus that Smalley built at Rice would eventually lead to discovery of Cgo and other buckyballs, major contributions to the nascent field of nanotechnology. Smalley, Kroto, and Smalley shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Thereafter, Smalley devoted his research to buckytubes and started Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc. in Houston devoted to their synthesis and applications. 

Graphene is a material made of carbon arranged in a flattened buckyball pattern. It has many potential uses in electronics and other mechanical and engineering applications. 

Nanofillers were first discovered by Japanese Scientist S. lijima in 1991 as helical microtubules of graphitic carbon [1]. Dr Richard E. Smalley of Rice University, USA was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his codiscovery of buckyballs (Ceo) and has made significant contributions in carbon nanotube synthesis and potential applications [2,3]. 

Such tubes are expected to be useful as model systems for the study of protein channel transport phenomena, and may find application in the controlled release of chemical substances. Buckyball fullerene spheres have also been made that are capable of holding and releasing a single molecule of water or other material [89]. 

The divasity of materials that can be appended to the CPMV coat protein using dick chemistry was furtha demonstrated when the Finn and Manchesta labs attached fullerenes (bucky-balls ) to the exterior surface of the virus. By using dick chemistry, the hydrophobic Cso molecules could be attached to the CPMV capsid, as well as the capsid of bacteriophage Q(3, allowing for solubilization of the highly hydrophobic fullerene. The modified capsids wae readily taken up by cdls, and the authors proposed that the buckyballs could be used as photosensitizers for cancer therapy in future applications. 

In the first biological application of buckyball, chemists at the University of California at San Francisco and Santa Barbara made a discovery in 1993 that could help in designing drugs to treat AIDS. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS reproduces by synthesizing a long protein chain, which is cut into smaller segments by an enzyme called HlV-protease. One way to stop AIDS, then, might... 

Buckyballs have captured the imagination of a variety of chemists. Research on buckyballs has led to a host of possible applications for these molecules. If metals are bound to the carbon atoms, the fullerenes become superconducting that is, they conduct electrical current... 

Compared to planar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), the curved structure of buckybowls endows them with additional interesting physical properties. For example, a bowl-shaped molecule has a dipole moment and a self complimentary shape that could lead to the formation of polar crystals. Moreover, buckyballs and carbon nanotubes are well known for their (potential) applications as electro-optical organic materials. Studies of buckybowls can provide fundamental information on buckyballs and carbon nanotubes. 

Ceo was trivially named buckminsterfullerene" after R. Buckminster Fuller, the engineer, architect, and philosopher who used similar shapes to construct geodesic domes. Due to their spherical shape, Cgo molecules are sometimes colloquially called buckyballs. Compounds derived from Cgo and related carbon clusters that enclose space (such as C70, which is egg shaped, Cyg, Cg4, and others) are called fullerenes. Even carbon nanotubes are now known some carbon nanotubes are even being used as storage containers to deliver anticancer drugs into cells for chemotherapy applications. 

These compounds, which are called nanotubes, can be thought of as a rolled-up sheet of graphite capped on either end by half of a buckyball. Nanotubes have many potential applications. They can be spun into fibers that are stronger and ligher than steel, and they can also be made to carry electrical currents more efficiently than metals. The next several decades are likely to see many exciting applications of buckyballs and nanotubes. 

---