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Buckyballs Polymerized Into Buckywires
KentuckyFC writes "Scientists have found a way to join buckyballs together so that they form buckywires. The wires form when buckyballs are dissolved in an aromatic hydrocarbon called 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene. The solvent links the balls together to make wires shaped like a string of pearls, which then precipitate out. This relatively simple procedure opens the door to industrial-scale manufacture. Buckywires ought to be efficient light harvesters because of their great surface area and the way they can conduct photon-liberated electrons. But perhaps the area of greatest interest is drug delivery. The researchers suggest that buckywires ought to be safer than carbon nanotubes because the production method is entirely metal-free. This contrasts with the production of nanotubes, which are formed in a reaction catalyzed by metallic nanoparticles."
How does this effect computing, I wonder. I've heard that buckyballs have some interesting electrical properties (in passing conversation so I can't recall what they are). Could someone elaborate on how "buckystrings" could be used for electrical applications?
If threads are created and those threads are woven into a fabric, then what kind of ballistic applications could we expect? Could panels be made from strands of buckysballs and into new car skins? Aircraft?
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Metal free production is nice, but in the end, it's not just what is used in production, but how you take out the undesirable things.
Benzene and many derivatives, are just as toxic (if not more so) than a lot of metals.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
If you read the actual article, the evidence suggests that the fullerenes are slowly polymerizing, and crosslinking - an NMR spectrum after several months implies that it actually is one, big, horrible mess (or not fullerenes anymore, depending on how skeptical you are of this).
Yeah that bugged me too. It's pretty common knowledge in the fullerene chemistry community that if you leave a fullerene sample in a solvent for long enough, it will break down/polymerize/what-have-you. The article is pretty heavily padded, if you ask me. They essentially pulled a year-old sample out of the drawer, couldn't get it to dissolve, and did some work to indicate that the stuff had polymerized. That in and of itself is pretty interesting, but 'metal-free?' Gimme a break. Most industrial scale-ups aren't looking for a synthesis that takes 11.5 months, and if you want it to go any faster, you're probably looking at introducing a catalyst at some point. So much for metal-free. Also, just a pet peeve of mine, but I really hate when chemists pad their articles with a whole bunch of theory when all they really did was stick their input file into Gaussian and wait around for an answer to pop out.