“Fullertubes: A Story of a New Family of Carbon Molecules, their Discovery, Isolation, Characterization and Opportunities for Application Development”
For historical context, the story begins in 1990 with the discovery and isolation of spheroidal carbon allotropes (e.g., C60, C70, C76, C78, C84). Soon thereafter, tubular structures of carbon arrived in the form of nanotubes (e.g., single walled and multi-walled), but with unknown molecular weights and either undefined or missing endcaps. Another 25 years would pass until a new chapter began in 2020 with emerging experimental evidence of a speculative series of “in-between” structures, i.e., a Frankenstein-like hybrid of a nanotube body with fullerene-based endcaps. Named “fullertubes,” these structures of elegant molecular architecture consist of a well-defined, single wall tubular carbon belt (i.e., a rolled graphene moiety) covalently bonded to two hemispherical fullerene endcaps (see below). In this presentation, I begin with a historical overview of the discovery process. I will also tell the story of how these new molecules are formed (plasma synthesis) and the advance in separation science (selective chemical separation, NH2PrOH) that finally led to the isolation of fullertubes. I will also discuss their emerging characterization efforts. The seminar concludes with an open call for new collaborations and ideas on application development for these newly reported carbon molecules.
