Russian scientists are synthesizing a scandium material (new ultra-hard material) with a carbon material. It consists of polymerized fullerene molecules with scandium and carbon atoms inside. The work paves the way for future studies of ultra-hard materials based on fullerenes, which makes them a potential candidate for photovoltaic and optical devices, elements of nanoelectronics and optoelectronics, biomedical engineering and high-performance contrast agents, etc. Carbon.
The discovery (new ultra-hard material) of a new carbon molecule known as fullerenes almost forty years ago was a revolutionary advance that paved the way for fullerene nanotechnology. Fullerenes have a spherical shape consisting of pentagons and hexagons resembling soccer balls, and the hole in the carbon frame of the fullerene molecules holds several atoms.
The introduction of metal atoms into carbon cages leads to the formation of endohedral metalloullers (EMFs), which are technologically and scientifically important due to their unique structural and optoelectronic properties.
A team of researchers from NUST MISIS, the Institute of Technology for Superhard and New Carbon Materials and the Kiren Institute of Physics FRC KSC SB RAS first got into scandals with EMP and studied the process of their polymerization. Polymerization is the process by which unbound molecules combine to form a chemically bonded polymerized material. Most polymerization reactions proceed faster at high pressure. After extracting a scandium containing fullerenes from carbon condensate using a high-frequency plasma arc discharge, it is placed in a diamond anvil, the most versatile and popular tool used to create very high pressure.
“We have found that guest atoms accelerate the polymerization process. Scandium atoms completely change the bonding process of fullerenes by polarizing the carbon bonds, which leads to an increase in their activity in The obtained material is less rigid than the original polymerized fullerenes, easier to extract, can be easy to extract. ” “Said Pavel Sorokin, chief researcher at the NUST MISIS Laboratory of Inorganic Nanomaterials.
The study will pave the way for the study of fullerite endohedral complexes as a macroscopic material and will allow EMF to be considered not only as a crucial nanostructure, but also as a promising material that may be required by various fields of science and technology in the future, scientists believe.
