Click and drag the nanotube below to view in 3D.
nanotubes
As seen above, nanotubes are composed of a cylindrical formation of carbon hexagons.
Carbon atoms in a nanotube are held togther by covalent bonds.
Nanotubes are only a few nanometers wide in diameter.
While they are tiny, light and flexible they are also extremely strong.
Nanotubes are also good conductors of heat and electricity.
Carbon nanotubes on a graphene sheet with buckyballs this produces a solar cell this is a paint on solar cell with some other polymers.
"Carbon nanotubes can also perform as a catalyst in a fuel cell, avoiding the use of expensive platinum.".
Artificial muscles can be created with a yarn of nanotubes
Nanotubes are used to direct electrons to illuminate pixels resulting in a lightweight nano emissive display panel
"When carbon nanotube ropes are released to the market they will be the strongest fiber available Single-walled carbon nanotubes are excellent conductors, and many computing companies are developing ways to use them in computers. Their use will allow the computing industry to create computer more powerful than those that can be fabricated via the conventional method of photolithography."
Nanotubes can now be used to help repair heart tissue damaged by heart attacks
Nanotubes are also used as filters with an electrical charge that helps prevent the buildup of slime
Fullerenes
[I didn't have time to make the 3d model for this]
Much like nanotubes, a fulleren is an carbon formation composed of hexagons. However Fullerenes are in the shape of a sphere. Their shape is comparable to that of a soccer ball.
In 1985, Fullerene were named after Buckminster Fuller, an architect.
"Cylindrical fullerenes are called bucky tubes."
"Graphite and fullerenes are very similar because they are composed of sheets of hexagonal rings. "
"Fullerenes were discovered in 1985 by researchers at rice"
"A single-walled carbon (SWCNT) resembles a tiny drinking straw with a wall that is just one carbon atom thick."
"The outer walls of both double- and triple-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) protect the innermost from interacting with their environment."
"To gain a better understanding of the outer tube in a (DWCNT), Thomas Hirschmann and Paulo Araujo at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and colleagues studied individual and bundled triple-walled carbon nanotubes (TWCNT's)."
"The analyses allowed us to study fundamental properties such as intertube mechanical coupling, wall-to-wall (WtW) distance, metallicity and curvature-dependent intertube interactions," he explained."
"The RBM is the most important spectroscopic signature of a CNT, the frequency of vibration of which is known to be inversely proportional to the tube diameter, he explained."