Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 20, 1992 TAG: 9203200160
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
"It" is the third major class of pure carbon, shaped (thousands of times smaller, of course) like a soccer ball.
Scientists call it the family of fullerenes - buckyballs, when they're speaking in catch phrases for the public.
The name is short for buckminsterfullerene, named for architect Buckminster Fuller, who designed a geodesic dome with the same symmetry as the molecule.
In Virginia Tech's Hahn Hall, chemists have jumped on the buckyball, a molecule that should prove only more and more useful as the years go on.
"There's no other molecule like this," said H.C. Dorn, who began studying buckyballs at IBM while on sabbatical two years ago. He was the first to bring the man-made molecules back to Tech.
The molecule was discovered in 1985, part of an experiment on carbon molecules in space. But it wasn't until 1991 that large quantities became available and scientists began avidly studying its qualities.
"Everyone wants to know what the applications are," Dorn said. "And it's really too early to tell."
But it's not too early to speculate. The two other forms of carbon are graphite and diamonds, each with countless uses. So it is conceivable that the new form of carbon will find its place in history, too.
"This discovery is so important," Dorn said. "Even if not a single application is discovered, this will take up chemists' interest for years and years. Ten or 20 years from now, we will still be reading about fullerenes and buckyballs."
But already, scientists are looking at the molecule - which because it is round and rotates rapidly, somewhere in the range of 10 billionths of a second at room temperature - as a potential microscopic ball bearing that could be used as a lubricant. It could be used in superconductors, in a new form of battery.
"It could be used in new plastics or polymers," Dorn said. "It's already being used as a coating for diamond surfaces."
And a group in France has discovered that the buckyball can be converted, under high pressure, into industrial diamonds.
It is resistant to shock, has a versatility that many other molecules do not, and is readily soluble in organic solvents.
At Tech, Dorn, along with Harold McNair, Bob Klute and Tom Glass, are working on separating the different types of higher fullerenes - the buckyball, which has 60 carbon atoms; a fullerene molecule with 70 carbon atoms (which is more football-shaped); and other variations with 84 carbon atoms or more.
There also are asymmetrical forms of the molecule, and cylinders nicknamed buckytubes.
The fullerene mixture originally sold for more than $1,000 a gram, but now is around $100. "It keeps dropping," Dorn said. And it is only in the past year that Tech has had "macro amounts to work with."
The chemists use the molecules that Dorn brought back from an IBM research lab in San Jose, Calif., and through something called "nuclear magnetic resonance" they take readings that show the shape of the molecules.
"There are different shapes, different variations, and they can be used for different things," Dorn said.
About 10 more faculty members are just starting to play with buckyballs, Dorn said.
"It is only beginning."
by CNB