Exploring Carbon’s Allotropy: A Pupil-Led Synthesis of Fullerenes from Graphite

A successful pupil-led effort to build a fullerene generator and to use it to synthesize C60 and C70 is reported, demonstrating that such an activity is feasible in schools. Suggestions are made as to how fullerene synthesis and purification could be used in conventional high school chemistry lesson...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of chemical education 2015-07, Vol.92 (7), p.1263-1265
Main Authors: Davis, Simon D. A, Holland, Simon D, Kingswell, Matthew S. A, Lavery, Patrick M, Smith, Martin J, Thomas, Christopher M, Tizzard, James E. A, West, George T, Zee, Ashley D. Z, Abdul-Sada, Alaa K, Hare, Jonathan P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Allotropy
Chemical elements
Chemical synthesis
Chemistry
Fullerenes
Generators
Organic chemistry
Schools
Science education
Secondary schools
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Summary:A successful pupil-led effort to build a fullerene generator and to use it to synthesize C60 and C70 is reported, demonstrating that such an activity is feasible in schools. Suggestions are made as to how fullerene synthesis and purification could be used in conventional high school chemistry lessons, particularly in the context of teaching the concept of allotropy, but also to illustrate some of the contrasting properties of simple versus giant covalent structures.
ISSN:0021-9584
1938-1328
DOI:10.1021/ed500709f