Scientists accidentally built a new carbon structure

The new structure called schwarzite will combine into "three atomic sets" with graphene and fullerene.

Scientists have created a new form of carbon, opening up another horizon of science and technology applications.

Carbon has new applications, besides being very important to life itself and being in almost every place, in the diamond - the hardest mineral on Earth so far, in the head. The pencil you are using, in the world's hardest material - graphene. People call the new type of carbon schwarzite .

Carbon structure of schwarzite.

Chemists have long predicted the existence of schwarzite, suspecting that they have suitable properties in making batteries and catalysts. Unexpectedly, after decades of searching still not found, schwarzite was randomly made successful by scientists in Korea and Japan.

At that time, they were studying the structure of zeolite carbon (ZTC) - the crystalline form of silicon dioxide with the carbon structure inside - to see if they were of a good nature. They randomly generated schwarzite but were unaware, until chemists at the University of California, Berkeley found the unusual structure of the new substance created.

"Now that we have the recipe for making these structures, this is very important because when we can make them, we can study them without much trouble," lead Professor Berend Smit. study said.

Carbon can be laminated into 2D form like graphene sheets or assembled into a round like fullerene structure . The shapes of the two substances are defined when carbon atoms are tightly bound together. Unlike the curved fullerene, graphene does not have a curved shape, so the schwartzite bends outward.

Fullerene.

Graphene.

"The experiment found a complete three-carbon schwarzite combined to curve in all different directions," said Professor Efrem Braun, who helped with the study.

Zeolite used in bleaching is a very important component to create this new carbon structure. In his study, Professor Braun and his colleagues pumped carbon into zeolite. Once inside, carbon will be folded into flat sheets like graphene, preventing zeolite molecules from coming out. The physical surface stretches and reaches out in unprecedented directions. Somehow, they decompose the zeolite to produce pure schwarzite.

How to make schwarzite as in the series of gif images below, with black is carbon and yellow and red is zeolite.

Optimizing schwarzite will be extremely beneficial for humanity. In the past, when scientists discovered new forms of carbon, fullerene and graphene, we have made tremendous advances in science and technology, scientists devoted to research have all won get a Nobel Prize.

Schwarzite is still in the early stages of manufacturing and research, still waiting to see what applications we can have.

It turns out that the atomic trio is real, and grahphene and fullerene have been waiting for the emergence of schwarzite for a long time!