A new form of carbon was recently discovered by scientists.
“A ring” – scientists have created a new shape of carbon molecules, consisting of 18 atoms arranged in a loop, illustrated here with data from a force microscope atom. The links are always changing between short and long, creating a “ring” of 9 sides.
Cyclocarbon is a versatile element, like diamond, graphite…
The researchers created the cyclocarbon molecule and an image of its structure – a ring chain of 18 carbon atoms that was posted online on August 5. This project has shown a new “face” to one of chemistry’s most studied atoms.
“Finding a new carbon molecule doesn’t happen every day,” says chemist Rik Tykwinski of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Its successful creation was inherently a puzzle, and Tykwinski himself bet on the possibility of discovering the cyclocarbon. “I won a bottle of scotch from a friend,” he said.
Cyclocarbons are in the form of versatile elements, like diamond, graphite, sheets like graphene, cylinders like carbon nanotubes, and bucky granules.
Chemists think it’s possible to create these carbon-ringed molecules . But until now, no one knew what its properties were, according to physicist Katharina Kaiser of the IBM research institute in Zurich. “It’s amazing that we found it, and if we can find the properties, even better,” she said.
In the lab, Kaiser and colleagues say that with molecules of cyclocarbon oxide, there are carbon atoms arranged in a ring with carbon monoxide groups attached to the molecules. Removing carbon monoxide to create new shapes is not easy: these groups aid in stabilizing the molecules. Using atomic force microscopy, the researchers were able to eject the carbon monoxide groups by applying an electric potential.
Another illustration of a cyclocarbon.
Finally, the process of creating a carbon ring that the team created using a microscope. Cyclocarbon reacts readily with other substances, so to be able to isolate it, the scientists built this new molecule on top of an inert layer of table salt.
Previous projects showed signs of cyclocarbon in a gas. But that did not satisfy chemists because it could not produce an image of the molecule and confirm its structure. In particular, it is unlikely that bonds between atoms can fluctuate between lengths and short, known by single and triple bonds, or bonds of the same length, or bonds of the same length. become a couple. Studies address this debate, showing that they are linked by single and triple bonds.
The results could help scientists sift through results from computers that are used to predict the structure of unknown molecules. “There is still a big question as to whether these calculations are correct, so it is important to be able to confirm them with experiments,” said UCLA chemist Yves Rubin, who is not involved. regarding this project.
Previous studies on new forms of carbon have received many positive directions from the scientific community. The discovery of the buckyberry in the 1980s and the family of molecules that contained it, the fullerenes won a Nobel Prize and many subsequent projects. Likewise, the discovery of graphene in 2004 was also honored with the Nobel Prize and subsequent projects on its application to electronics.
But precisely because the cyclocarbon is unstable, it cannot be saved for future research, so its application to science remains a question to be answered.