There’s a new ball game in town, but you can’t play it in the gym or on a field.
It’s played in the chemistry lab.
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| Buckminsterfullerene C60 (Mstroeck graphic) |
Buckminsterfullerenes, or buckyballs for short, are a curious plaything in chemical engineering. And while their interest to scientists is high, their usefulness eludes researchers. Buckyballs are molecules of pure carbon, containing 60 or 70 carbon atoms, shaped much like a soccer ball. They are the third form of pure carbon on the planet along with diamonds and graphite, said William Haley, former chairman of chemistry and earth sciences at San Antonio College.
They get their name from architect Richard Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic domes closely resemble this versatile molecule’s structure.
Richard Smalley, a physics and chemistry professor at Rice University in Houston, discovered buckyballs in 1985.
Haley said the expensive cost of producing buckyballs impedes research and development. He said buckyballs cost $100 to $200 per gram to make. For wide use of buckyballs in future products, he said, cheaper production methods must be found.
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| Buckminster Fuller (Dan Lindsay photo) |
What makes buckyballs so special, Haley said, is their ability to bond easily with other molecules since they are entirely made from carbon, the base element for life on Earth.
The double bonds found in buckyballs make them sturdy molecules, and they could act as containers for metals used in superconductors, such as lanthanum.
Superconductors alls the transfer of electric current without resistance when cooled to low temperatures.
Haley said buckyballs have been used for such purposes but have been unsuccessful because they buckyball/metal combination quickly breaks down when exposed to air.
Haley said scientists are even considering using buckyballs in copier toner, but this currently costs too much.
On the biomedical front, researchers have looked into using buckyballs as an HIV inhibitor and also using its carbon cage for transporting radioactive elements such as radon to treat cancer.
Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta reported in August 1993 that buckyballs could bond to HIV protease, a key enzyme, paralyzing it and rendering it noninfectious to human cells grown in the laboratory.
The researchers stressed, however, that buckyballs are not the cure for AIDS, only the first practical biological application of buckyballs. Haley said this application would need further study.
“We need to find out how effective the bonding will be to the virus and how effective it will be to humans,” he said.
“We also need to find out how to get it inside the blood stream.”
Haley also said researchers need to learn how buckyballs will interfere with the rest of the organ systems within the body.
Rice University's Andrew Barron, a chemistry and materials science professor, along with his group and researchers in Greece, Italy, and Germany, have collaborated to investigate the possibility of using fullerenes to inhibit a strain of the virus, HIV-1 PR.
Haley said he sees buckyballs being used as catalysts to purify other compounds the way carbon black is used to purify sugar and in hydrogenation, the process that turns vegetable oil into margarine.
He sees this as a practical commercial use for fullerenes in the future.
With a little patience and persistence, scientists will be playing with buckyballs throughout the 21st century.
Sidebar
The Amazing Buckminsterfullerene
Buckminsterfullerenes are named after architect Buckminster Fuller. They were first discovered in a soccer ball-pattern shape. One of its unique traits allows it to contain almost any other atom. Another is its ability to join to other buckyballs and form nanotubes.
Discovery
Richard Smalley and Harold Kroto created the first known samples of buckminsterfullerenes by accident in 1985. Their discovery was unexpected because the only other known forms of naturally pure carbon molecules are diamonds and graphite. Smalley and Kroto, along with Robert Curl, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1996.
Atomics
Buckyballs come in several varieties, but all are made of about 60 carbon molecules that form a stable, spherical shape.
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| Carbon nanotube |
Versatility:
Scientists believe these unusual molecules’ shapes and sizes may be used for many purposes:
• Their cage-like shape allows them to both hold and block other molecules.
• They may be arranged in tube-shaped formations to conduct electricity.
• When combined with some metal atoms, they become unstable superconductors.
• Sheet of buckyballs may serve to filter other chemicals, depending on their atomic size.
• Their size also regulates the amount of light that passes through them, acting as a natural light filter in goggles and tinted glass.
• Because they are mad of carbon, buckyballs also may have unpredicted biochemical properties.
© 2014 Martin Malacara
