By Jovin Ho, VI Form

A Study of Fullerenes

A fullerene is an allotrope of carbon which denotes a series of carbon molecules that form a multitude of different shapes including hollow spheres (Buckminsterfullerenes) or cylindrical tubes (carbon nanotubes). Buckminsterfullerenes (or Buckyballs) were the first type of Fullerene whose structure was determined. In 1980, Sumio Iijima examined an electron microscope image, and found a cluster of carbon molecules which formed the core of a “bucky onion.”^[1]Buckyballs are a chemical compound with the formula C60 and comprises of carbon atoms arranged in a hollow cage-like ball shape (truncated icosahedron) – not dissimilar to a soccer ball – and made up of twelve pentagons and twenty hexagons. The existence of the Buckyball had originally been predicted in 1970 by Eji Osawa after observing the structure of corannulene (C20H10) molecule which appeared to be a fragment of the full soccer ball shape that Buckyballs take. (more…)