Chemists Make First-Ever Ring of Pure Carbon (nature.com) 37
A team of researchers has synthesized the first ring-shaped molecule of pure carbon -- a circle of 18 atoms. Nature reports: The chemists started with a triangular molecule of carbon and oxygen, which they manipulated with electric currents to create the carbon-18 ring. Initial studies of the properties of the molecule, called a cyclocarbon, suggest that it acts as a semiconductor, which could make similar straight carbon chains useful as molecular-scale electronic components.
Chemist Przemyslaw Gawel of the University of Oxford, UK, and his collaborators have now created and imaged the long-sought ring molecule carbon-18. Using standard 'wet' chemistry, his collaborator Lorel Scriven, an Oxford chemist, first synthesized molecules that included four-carbon squares coming off the ring with oxygen atoms attached to squares. The team then sent their samples to IBM laboratories in Zurich, Switzerland, where collaborators put the oxygen -- carbon molecules on a layer of sodium chloride, inside a high-vacuum chamber. They manipulated the rings one at a time with electric currents (using an atomic-force microscope that can also act as a scanning-transmission microscope), to remove the extraneous, oxygen-containing parts. After much trial-and-error, micrograph scans revealed the 18-carbon structure. "I never thought I would see this," says Scriven. Alternating bond types are interesting because they are supposed to give carbon chains and rings the properties of semiconductors. The results suggest that long, straight carbon chains might be semiconductors, too, Gawel says, which could make them useful as components of future molecular-sized transistors. The paper has been published in the journal Science.
Chemist Przemyslaw Gawel of the University of Oxford, UK, and his collaborators have now created and imaged the long-sought ring molecule carbon-18. Using standard 'wet' chemistry, his collaborator Lorel Scriven, an Oxford chemist, first synthesized molecules that included four-carbon squares coming off the ring with oxygen atoms attached to squares. The team then sent their samples to IBM laboratories in Zurich, Switzerland, where collaborators put the oxygen -- carbon molecules on a layer of sodium chloride, inside a high-vacuum chamber. They manipulated the rings one at a time with electric currents (using an atomic-force microscope that can also act as a scanning-transmission microscope), to remove the extraneous, oxygen-containing parts. After much trial-and-error, micrograph scans revealed the 18-carbon structure. "I never thought I would see this," says Scriven. Alternating bond types are interesting because they are supposed to give carbon chains and rings the properties of semiconductors. The results suggest that long, straight carbon chains might be semiconductors, too, Gawel says, which could make them useful as components of future molecular-sized transistors. The paper has been published in the journal Science.
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Like when you got to the bathroom and there it is, floating in the water.
Well, I suppose it was a shit carbon joke.
Appropriately modded as an Offtopic.
"First-ever ring of pure carbon?" (Score:1)
Isn't the benzene ring basic to a huge swath of our commercial chemical applications? The innovation here is a ring of 18 carbons, rather than 6.
Re:"First-ever ring of pure carbon?" (Score:5, Informative)
Benzene is C6H6. This is C18.
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But we had even C60 since quite a while.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: "First-ever ring of pure carbon?" (Score:5, Insightful)
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I prefer WD40
Re: "First-ever ring of pure carbon?" (Score:2)
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Benzene is C6H6. This is C18.
The actual carbon chauvinism. ;)
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To enter the real inner circle you have to pass the C14 test as well.
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I wonder what that moderator was thinking when modding this down :) At least I thought it was funny .
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#HydrogenMatters
Re:"First-ever ring of pure carbon?" (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, but it's got all that pesky hydrogen in it. Which isn't carbon.
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Re: "First-ever ring of pure carbon?" (Score:2)
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With the triple bonds, probably not very strong.
Kind of like a flat version of a fullerene. (Score:2)
I think it was 20-30 years ago that people were all excited about fullerenes and carbon nanotubes.
Re:Kind of like a flat version of a fullerene. (Score:5, Funny)
I think it was 20-30 years ago that people were all excited about fullerenes and carbon nanotubes.
If we could attach a block chain to a carbon nanotube and make it super conductive, maybe it could achieve cold fusion to power our flying cars.
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When will people ever learn to quit goofing around with energy and molecules and stuff?
Puff the Magic Carbon (Score:1)
And so (Score:5, Informative)
Carbon atoms like four bonds. As each bond likes to be as far away from the others in 3d as possible, it looks kind of like 4-spike jacks 007 might throw under the tires of a car following him.
To bend two to connect to the same nearby atom strains things, and 3 even more so. This ring is a carbon atom connected 3 bonds to the next one, then 1, then 3 bonds again. 18 is large enough apparently the strain doesn't rip it apart.
Re:And so (Score:5, Informative)
Per the article the strain may still rip it apart, it's not known if it's stable when taken off the substrate. Still very neat though.
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Obligatory Tolkien referrence (Score:4, Funny)
Shocking (Score:5, Funny)
I'm shocked to learn that IBM still has laboratories.
Planet is full of carbon (Score:2)