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Diamond, Graphite, Graphene, Bucky Ball and Nanotube (Fun with Carbon)

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Abstract

“Diamonds are forever!” Are they really? We will learn later how true this statement is. Diamond is the hardest material, and that suggests sturdiness and long-lastingness. Yet amazingly, it is simply made of carbon atoms only. Coal is almost pure carbon. Graphite, an allotrope of carbon, is a better example in contrast to diamond because graphite is also pure carbon. Graphite is the material used in pencils among others. Diamond and graphite could not be more different. One is transparent, colorless and hard while the other is completely black and relatively soft. Diamond is much denser (density  =  3.51 g/cm3) than graphite (2.25 g/cm3). Diamond is an electrical insulator, while graphite works like a metal, an electric conductor. Why are they so different, if made of the same carbon atoms and carbon atoms only?

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Correspondence to Eiichiro Ochiai .

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© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Ochiai, E. (2011). Diamond, Graphite, Graphene, Bucky Ball and Nanotube (Fun with Carbon). In: Chemicals for Life and Living. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20273-5_11

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