> [...]
> Buckyballs and bucky tubes are chemically more diamond-like than anything.
I dunno. Adamantane is diamondoid. Diamantane is diamondoid. Buckyballs,
and buckytubes form a class of their own. Which color have buckytubes?
Glossy black? What electrical conductivity?
> The distinction between diamond and graphite is not the shape of the
> crystal/molecular structure, but the bond hybridization between atoms.
I'd say the both are _very_ closely linked. Remember what happens,
if you twist the ethene bond.
> Diamond is pure sp3 while pure graphite is sp2. Bucky-* allotropes are
> composed of sp3 type bonds like diamond, but have dangling single bonds
> which allow the carbon atoms to connect in a fashion similar to sp2 carbon
> structures. The major bonus in all this, especially in the case of
> buckytubes, is that you get all the flexibility of a planar allotrope, but
> the strength and stability of sp3 bonds.
> Carbon atoms strongly resist conformations outside of their normal
> tetrahedral bond distribution (sp3) which is the reason they don't normally
> form planar surfaces that occur so frequently with sp2 hybridization. Bucky
> allotropes are larger-scale carbon structures that maintain enough curvature
> to generate minimal stress on the sp3 bonds, while giving a chemical
> appearance of a nearly planar structure.
>
> -James Rogers
> jamesr@best.com
>
>
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