BUCKYBOWLS by the Bucketful.(Brief Article)

Publication: USA Today (Magazine)

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COPYRIGHT 2001 Society for the Advancement of Education

Scientists may be closer to unlocking the mystery of buckyballs--curious hollow spheres formed by 60 atoms of carbon--thanks to research being conducted by Peter Rabideau, a senior chemist at the Department of Energy's Ames (Iowa) Laboratory and dean of Iowa State University's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Ames. Using simple solution chemistry, he has developed a process to produce gram quantities of corannulene ([C.sub.20]), a curved-surface, aromatic hydrocarbon Nicknamed buckybowls, the bowl-shaped corranulene molecules represent the polar cap of the [C.sub.60] sphere. By making it possible to produce large quantities of these bowl segments. Rabideau hopes to...

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