Joint Meeting of Four Societies
Australian Institute of Energy
Australian Nuclear Association
The Royal Society of New South Wales
The Institute of Engineers Australia
Novel Carbons: Fullerenes and Nanotubes
Materials for an Energy-Efficient Future
Prof. Michael Wilson, PhD, DSc
Head, Department of Chemistry, Materials and Forensic Science
Faculty of Science, University of Technology, Sydney
Sydney, Australia.
Date: February 9th, 1999
ABSTRACT
We are familiar with three forms in which the element carbon occurs naturally; char/coke, graphite and diamond. We are starting to learn more about the fourth, the only one not known since ancient times: the fullerenes and nanotubes.
The more we learn about these remarkable materials, the more it is becoming clear that the impacts they could have on our lives - nanotubes in particular - could well exceed the impacts made down through history by the other three.
In his lecture Professor Wilson, an internationally recognised expert in this field, will outline some of the possible long-term benefits that may accrue from the application of the "fourth form of carbon" to some of the outstanding energy-related challenges the world faces: their unique ability to act as electrical conductors and insulators at the same time; their ability to store electricity in several ways; their unsurpassed strength and stiffness; and, to serve as the heart of assemblers in the embryonic field of nanotechnology.
Nanometric Meccano
Report on the lecture by Dr Edmund PotterVice-President
On February 9, 1999 the Society joined with the Australian Institute of Energy, the Australian Nuclear Association, and the Institute of Engineers Australia to hear Professor Michael Wilson (Head of Chemistry, Materials Science & Forensics Department, University of Technology, Sydney) speak on "Materials for an Energy-effective Future ". The speaker warned his audience at the outset to expect something visionary, and we were not disappointed (as the vigorous and prolonged discussion afterwards testified).
Kroto's recognition in the mid-1980's of a fourth form of the element carbon (a faceted hollow ball made of sixty atoms) initiated a wholly new field of chemical inquiry. Separate development of instrumentation to control and follow the assembly and deposition of individual atoms enriched the growing knowledge base, as the speaker's slides and illustrations dramatically showed. Writing "IBM" with an Indian file of helium atoms or assembling a few dozen cobalt atoms in a human outline may not be novelties any more, but exploiting a cis/trans isomeric change reversibly at unimolecular scale under the influence of light raises the real possibility of producing ultra-fast switches of molecular dimensions for binary computing.
Professor Wilson developed an early interest in C60, and described how he and his team at CSlRO had found that superior yields of C60 resulted if, instead of using graphite as raw material, coal was arced instead. The C60 balls could be extracted from the deposited soot using toluene, and topological molecular variations arose if different elements were added to the reactor. For example, barium atoms could be placed inside the C60 balls.
Perhaps most intriguing of all was the formation of nanotubes (10-9 m or so across). Pictures of these carbon atom frameworks showed them (for example) to resemble rolled-up chicken wire with a C60 ball blocking the end. Nanotubes with laminated walls and end-blockers of 5,6, or 7-membered carbon rings have been identified. Their diameters and size distribution depend controllably on the additives used, e.g. cobalt or sulphur. Methods exist to slice nanotubes (as if they were Swiss rolls) and to make them water-soluble.
Professor Wilson closed with a fascinating glimpse of a 21st century Industrial Revolution based on "engines" of nanometric dimensions controlling at will the production of vital molecules, templates for their own self-replication and assembly. Biological processes stood to be mimicked, using alternative nanometric structures in vivo to overcome the restraints to mobility suffered by (for example) paraplegics and stroke victims.
Prepared by Edmund Potter, 24th February 1999.