A buckminsterfullerene, also known as a buckyball, is typically a fullerene consisting of sixty carbon atoms (C60) arranged in a way that resembles a football-like sphere. Extending this arrangement to other types of atoms has until now however proven as elusive as finding non-carbon-based lifeforms. In a paper by [Hyun Wook Choi] et al. and published in Chemical Science the discovery of boron buckyballs is detailed. There is also a soft-paywalled article in the Chemical & Engineering News magazine for a higher-level perspective.
The discovered boron-based buckyball ups the number of atoms to eighty, forming B80 (boron fullerite) with a slightly larger diameter than C60 at 0.85 nm versus 0.71 nm. Perhaps more interesting are the claims by the authors that boron fullerite may have more practical applications than its carbon-based cousin, mostly due to it being predicted to be a semiconductor with an 0.8 eV energy gap and better electron acceptance that provides interesting doping prospects.
Producing these boron structures used laser vaporization with a helium carrier gas that was seeded with argon to increase cooling efficiency. Inside this boron cluster the reported structures were then discovered and characterized as described in the paper.
Obviously, going from a fascinating laboratory discovery to bulk production won’t be easy, and the predicted properties of boron fullerite may turn out to be incomplete or have a dark side that we aren’t aware of. Regardless, they’re bound to be more useful at least than the carbon version that’s remained mostly a curiosity despite many years of research.
Hopefully they picked a better name than the Chinese scientists did for the copper nanotubes… CuNanoTubes, without the “ano” and “ubes” of course.
Bismuth nanotubes got a similar treatment as well.
BITCH?
BIsmuth NanoTubes
Take just the capital letters.
add americans to chinese to form the group of people who don’t necessarily get this one :)
I know “bint” means “daughter” in Arabic. It’s also the name of a popular species of potato in The Netherlands. And it’s the Dutch word for “beam” (the structural support type of beam).
And that’s about how far my knowledge of the word “bint” goes.
I did research and it and seems that in some places it’s used to insult woman by suggesting membership of Seamstresses’ Guild in Ankh Morpork.
“elusive”
I was just coming here to say the same thing. Unless she means that non-carbon Buckyballs cause illusions. In that case, she’s right.
English being a completely rational and absolutely not confounding language due to its scraped-together vocabulary is definitely an illusion :)
Thanks for the catch, fixed it in the text.
English is bad Saxon German as spoken by Vikings pretending to be French.
My word. You really are a complete Snarkenswine aren’t you :o
Wonder what the application use cases are going to look like. I’ve seen the theories on using buckyballs for everything from energy storage, to dry lubricants, to medicine delivery. Would a boron based buckyball be better for the same applications since its slightly larger?
Its a triangle arrangement instead of an pentagon-hexagon layout so I guess its stronger in theory.
Boron and carbon can interface in the same lattice and the defects have electronic/geometric properties. So, nano-scale meta-materials. Probably batteries. Then medical sensors.
Just in time for World Cup football!
I can’t imagine one of these molecules being shaped like an American football.
That mentioned darker side will be cancer, it’s always cancer, and will be directly protortional to the usefulness of the substance…..
Forever Buckyballs.