MadSci Network: Chemistry
Query:

Re: What are the properties and applications of bucky balls?

Date: Mon Jun 1 08:48:01 1998
Posted By: Dan Berger, Faculty Chemistry/Science, Bluffton College
Area of science: Chemistry
ID: 895826557.Ch
Message:

What are the properties and applications of bucky balls?


Fullerenes, an allotrope of carbon, are hollow spheres and ovoids. You would expect them to have some properties of molecule-sized ball bearings, and they do; for example, individual C60 molecules rota te very rapidly in the solid state.

Fullerenes are really neat molecules, and have been/are being investigated mostly because of that fact! Indeed, the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded primarily because fullerenes are such nifty beasts. However, there are some potential applications of fullerenes.

  1. Because fullerenes are very large graphitic systems, they can easily accommodate extra electrons. When you add three electrons to C60 you get ionic solids of the general formula A3C60, where A is any metal in Group I (lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, cesium). These materials are actually metals, and display sup erconductivity at somewhat low temperatures. Current research is aimed at getting the maximum superconducting temperature (or Tc) to higher values.
  2. C60 is just the right size to fit into the activ e cavity of HIV Protease, an enzyme important to the activity of the virus which causes AIDS. Cramming a buckyball into the active cavity would deactivate the enzyme and kill the virus. Ways of getting the molecule to the enzyme are under investigation.

Most of this information has been drawn from

You should also check out the NOVA film, "Race to Catch a Buckyball."

  Dan Berger
  Bluffton College
  http://cs.bluffton.edu/~berger


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