Carbon nanotubes and fullerenes articles within Nature Chemistry

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  • Article |

    Visualizing single-molecule reactions using electron microscopy can be difficult because of potential radiation damage from the electron beam. Now, however, it has been shown that a high-energy electron beam can be used to synthesize metallo-azafullerenes. Atomic-resolution, time-resolved transmission electron microscopy, with the help of computational calculations, is used to monitor the metal-encapsulation dynamics.

    • Helen Hoelzel
    • , Sol Lee
    •  & Dominik Lungerich

  • Article |

    Open-shell nanographenes are promising for quantum technologies, but their magnetic stability has remained limited by weak exchange coupling. Now, two large rhombus-shaped nanographenes with zigzag peripheries, one with 48 carbon atoms and the other with 70, have been synthesized on gold and copper surfaces. The 70-carbon compound exhibits a large magnetic exchange coupling exceeding 100 meV.

    • Shantanu Mishra
    • , Xuelin Yao
    •  & Roman Fasel

  • Article |

    A supramolecular three-shell matryoshka-like complex di rects the functionalization of the C60 inner shell to the selective formation of a single trans-3 fullerene bis-adduct. The selectivity with this matryoshka-like approach could be useful for applications where regioisomerically pure C60 bis-adducts have been shown to have superior properties compared with isomer mixtures.

    • Ernest Ubasart
    • , Oleg Borodin
    •  & Xavi Ribas

  • News & Views |

    The first two examples of zigzag carbon nanobelts have been reported. These compounds have been elusive targets for synthetic chemists for 35 years, but strategic structural modifications and mastering challenging multi-step syntheses finally brought success.

    • Birgit Esser
    •  & Mathias Hermann

  • Article |

    Aryl functionalization of carbon nanotubes generates sp3 defects capable of quantum light emission. A multiplicity of possible binding configurations, however, leads to spectrally diverse emission bands. Now, it is shown that the structural symmetry of zigzag nanotubes and a high chemical selectivity for ortho configurations results in defect-state emission from a single narrow band.

    • Avishek Saha
    • , Brendan J. Gifford
    •  & Stephen K. Doorn

  • News & Views |

    Building materials with clusters instead of atoms promises unconventional properties, but those 'superatomic solids' are often too fragile to manipulate. Now, intercalating a guest within an ionic layered solid made of fullerenes and metal chalcogenide clusters greatly alters its conductivity and optical properties without disrupting its crystalline structure.

    • Shiv N. Khanna
    •  & Arthur C. Reber

  • Article |

    Intercalation — a cornerstone of materials science with wide-ranging applications — has now been demonstrated in a superatomic crystal. A redox-active tetracyanoethylene guest was inserted into the lattice of a material consisting of alternate layers of {Co6Te8} clusters and C60 fullerenes, leading to a single-crystal-to-single-crystal transformation that significantly modulates the material's optical and electrical transport properties.

    • Evan S. O'Brien
    • , M. Tuan Trinh
    •  & Xavier Roy

  • News & Views |

    The process of electronic energy transfer between molecules has long fascinated chemists. Femtosecond spectroscopy measurements of a series of molecular dimers now reveal signals that arise from non-Born–Oppenheimer coupling, suggesting a new mechanism to enhance energy transfer.

    • Daniel B. Turner

  • Article |

    Synthetic heterodimers provide a platform to demonstrate molecular design principles of vibronic coupling. Now, it has been shown that quantum beating caused by vibronic coupling can be controlled by packing a structurally flexible heterodimer on single-walled carbon nanotubes. This quantum beating requires a vibration to be resonant with the energy gap between excited states and structural rigidity.

    • Lili Wang
    • , Graham B. Griffin
    •  & Gregory S. Engel

  • Article |

    The influence of the thermodynamic driving force for photoinduced electron-transfer between single-walled carbon nanotubes and fullerene derivatives has been investigated. The Marcus inverted region and small reorganization energies were observed for this model organic heterojunction. Small reorganization energies aid in minimizing energy losses for solar conversion to electricity or fuels.

    • Rachelle Ihly
    • , Kevin S. Mistry
    •  & Jeffrey L. Blackburn

  • Article |

    Endohedral C70 fullerenes containing either one or two water molecules have now been prepared using a molecular-surgery approach. The structure of H2O@C70 was determined by single-crystal X-ray analysis, revealing the encapsulated water molecule to be in an off-centre position. In (H2O)2@C70, the two water molecules form a discrete dimer held together with a single hydrogen bond.

    • Rui Zhang
    • , Michihisa Murata
    •  & Yasujiro Murata

  • News & Views |

    Fullerene-based dendritic structures coated with 120 sugars can be made in high yields in a relatively short sequence of reactions. The mannosylated compound is shown to inhibit Ebola infection in cells more efficiently than monofullerene-based glycoclusters.

    • Sébastien Vidal

  • News & Views |

    A vast number of possible isomers exist for each fullerene, yet few are observed experimentally. Neutral fullerenes typically minimize adjacent pentagons, but charged ones often tolerate them. Now, a simple model taking into account structural strain and π electronic aspects predicts the asymmetric relative stabilities of charged isomers.

    • Patrick Fowler

  • Article |

    The stability of charged fullerenes is not as well understood as that of their neutral counterparts, with, for example, more frequent violations of the isolated-pentagon and pentagon-adjacency penalty rules. Now, a simple model based on the concepts of cage connectivity and frontier π orbitals predicts the relative stability of cationic and anionic fullerene isomers.

    • Yang Wang
    • , Sergio Díaz-Tendero
    •  & Fernando Martín

  • News & Views |

    Self-assembled amphiphiles are more common in the realm of aqueous systems than in organic solvents. Their scope has now been expanded with the advent of 'hydrophobic amphiphiles' of π-conjugated–alkyl systems, which show various self-assembled phases similar to classical amphiphiles.

    • Albert P. H. J. Schenning
    •  & Subi J. George

  • Article |

    Main-group analogues to fullerene-C60 have been predicted theoretically many times. Now, B40− has been observed using photoelectron spectroscopy and, with its neutral analogue, B40, confirmed computationally. In contrast to fullerene-C60, the all-boron fullerene (or borospherene) features triangles, hexagons and heptagons, bonded uniformly by delocalized σ and π bonds over the cage surface.

    • Hua-Jin Zhai
    • , Ya-Fan Zhao
    •  & Lai-Sheng Wang

  • News & Views |

    Covalently bonding groups to the walls of carbon nanotubes has been previously observed to quench their photoluminescence. Now, it has been shown that, if you get the chemistry just right, their photoluminescence can in fact be significantly brightened by introducing defects through functionalization.

    • Qing Hua Wang
    •  & Michael S. Strano

  • Article |

    An asymmetric pentalene-containing C1(51383)-C84 fullerene cage is found in two different metal carbide metallofullerenes. This particular cage can, in simple steps, rearrange into many well-known fullerene cages that are more stable and more symmetric, suggesting it is likely that metallofullerenes are generated by a ‘top-down’ formation mechanism.

    • Jianyuan Zhang
    • , Faye L. Bowles
    •  & Harry C. Dorn

  • Article |

    The controlled functionalization of single-walled carbon nanotubes has been shown to brighten their photoluminescence up to 28 times, which challenges our current understanding of how chemical defects affect low-dimensional carbon materials. This significantly improved photon conversion efficiency promises to advance a broad range of optoelectronic and imaging applications based on carbon nanotubes.

    • Yanmei Piao
    • , Brendan Meany
    •  & YuHuang Wang

  • Article |

    Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are typically produced as a mixture of tubes with different diameters and sidewall structures — parameters that determine the optical and electronic properties of these materials. Now, it has been shown that discrete carbon nanorings can be used as templates to control the bottom-up growth of CNTs with a narrow distribution of diameters.

    • Haruka Omachi
    • , Takuya Nakayama
    •  & Kenichiro Itami

  • Article |

    Efficient hydrogen-evolving catalysts comprising readily available elements are needed if hydrogen is to be adopted as a clean alternative to fossil fuels. Now, a diimine–dioxime cobalt complex has been covalently attached to a carbon nanotube electrode to yield an active and robust electrocatalyst for hydrogen generation (55,000 turnovers in seven hours) from aqueous solutions.

    • Eugen S. Andreiadis
    • , Pierre-André Jacques
    •  & Vincent Artero

  • Article |

    The outer surfaces of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) are known to participate in a range of chemical reactions, but the inner surfaces have so far been thought to be somewhat unreactive. Now, it has been shown that electron-beam irradiation of rhenium–fullerene complexes inside SWNTs can trigger reactions at the inner wall to form protrusions on the nanotube surface.

    • Thomas W. Chamberlain
    • , Jannik C. Meyer
    •  & Andrei N. Khlobystov

  • Research Highlights |

    A material with viscoleastic properties that are stable over a large temperature range has been created from carbon nanotubes.

    • Neil Withers

  • News & Views |

    The efficient catalytic oxidation of water to dioxygen in the solid state is one of the challenges to be overcome to build sun-driven and/or electrocatalytic water-splitting devices. Now, an effective water-oxidation hybrid catalyst system has been made by attaching a ruthenium-polyoxometallate complex to a carbon nanotube.

    • Antoni Llobet

  • Research Highlights |

    Molecular dynamics simulations suggest that proton transfer in water within a carbon nanotube occurs through a mechanism different from that found in bulk water.

    • Gavin Armstrong

  • Article |

    Catalytically oxidizing water to produce oxygen is so challenging that even the enzyme that performs the task in nature must be regenerated every 30 mins. Now, stable oxygen-evolving anodes have been made by tethering a polyoxometalate catalyst to a conducting bed of carbon nanotubes.

    • Francesca M. Toma
    • , Andrea Sartorel
    •  & Marcella Bonchio

  • Research Highlights |

    Infrared measurements from a space telescope have identified fullerene molecules in a planetary nebula.

    • Neil Withers

  • Article |

    The wealth of solution-chemistry properties of a well-known M6L4 coordination cage can be transferred into the solid state by networking the cage into a highly porous crystalline structure. The material behaves as a ‘fullerene sponge’, absorbing up to 35 wt% of C60 or C70 into the crystal, with a preference for C70 when exposed to mixtures of the two.

    • Yasuhide Inokuma
    • , Tatsuhiko Arai
    •  & Makoto Fujita

  • Research Highlights |

    The unit cell volume of alkali metal fullerides is related to the temperature at which superconducting behaviour begins.

    • Neil Withers

  • Editorial |

    As the beautiful game once again takes to the world stage this summer, it is worth remembering that 2010 also marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the professional debut of a very tiny football.

  • Article |

    Metal-containing fullerene cages are widely known, but hard to characterize because of their reactivity towards empty cages. Now the molecular and crystal structures of lithium-containing C60 molecules have been determined.

    • Shinobu Aoyagi
    • , Eiji Nishibori
    •  & Hiromi Tobita

  • Research Highlights |

    Radioactive iodide can be aimed at specific organs in the body by trapping it inside sugar-functionalized carbon nanotubes.

    • Stephen Davey

  • Article |

    Although fullerenes have been synthesized from graphite for a long time, the exact mechanism is relatively unknown. Now, in situ microscopy and quantum chemical modelling have directly followed the formation of fullerenes from a single graphitic sheet — graphene.

    • Andrey Chuvilin
    • , Ute Kaiser
    •  & Andrei N. Khlobystov

  • Article |

    Fullerene cages that break the isolated pentagon rule are rare and often unstable. Now a range of fullerenes that feature three sequentially fused pentagons of carbon have been stabilized by chlorination.

    • Yuan-Zhi Tan
    • , Jia Li
    •  & Lan-Sun Zheng

  • News & Views |

    Chemical reactions of fullerenes and metallofullerenes lined up inside single-walled carbon nanotubes can be monitored at the atomic scale inside an aberration-corrected transmission electron microscope.

    • Mauricio Terrones

  • Article |

    Well-resolved images of small molecules and their motions can be obtained with high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. It has now been shown that this technique can also be used to visualize individual chemical reactions involving the dimerization of fullerenes and metallo-fullerenes trapped inside carbon nanotubes by monitoring how the positions of their atoms change over time.

    • Masanori Koshino
    • , Yoshiko Niimi
    •  & Sumio Iijima

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