Carbon is getting a bad rap nowdays. There is talk of carbon tax for those polluting and endangering the planet by emitting carbon dioxide.
On the other hand there is little mention that plants depend on carbon dioxide
and that nature copes well with volcano farts
which dwarfs machine and cow farts combined.
Carbon is looked on as dirty unwanted black soot. Under that black covering, carbon`s hard core is revealed as a sparkling diamond that has a magical past going back billions of years to life itself.
Carbon has a softer face as the backbone of life. The carbon atoms, like women, form bonds with themselves and with many different atoms to form stable molecules and crystals.
Carbon atoms form string structures that are stable in the environment found on the surface of the earth, yet could be broken in the right conditions. Strings of carbons with clinging hydrogens are herded and captured by oxygen atoms to form stable families of molecules such as carbohydrates like sugars and alcohols, and acids like fats.
Some chains loop on themselves forming rings. Decorated by nitrogen atoms, the carbon chains are woven into a vast and varied tapestry called life.
When life dies and gets buried deep underground, the nitrogen and oxygen atoms are removed leaving only the carbon chains soaked in hydrogens called hydrocarbons like natural gas, oils and waxes.
When the strings and rings are squeezed dry, flat sheets of graphite are produced much like how paper is made from fibers.
The sheets of slippery graphite fall on each other like snow flakes, and get pressed like ice into blocks of coal. When pressures causes the graphite sheets to align, they form diamonds,
much like forming stacks from piles of sheets of papers. Like the graphite sheets were corrugated cardboard sheets slipping over each other and the suddenly locked together.
Diamond is the hardest material having the highest melting point. It has a higher thermal conduction than silver and at the same time does not conduct electricity. Diamond has the greatest number of atoms per unit volume of any known substance and it is the material that conducts heat the fastest. Asbestos has a 0.08 rating while glass is 0.8, plastics are 0.2, wood is 0.1 steel is 50, gold is 300 and diamond is 1000. Just touch glass and diamond from a freezer and the diamond immediately gets warm while the glass stays cold.
Depending on what angle you view the diamond crystal, it has a cubic structure which contains the tetrahedron, (the basic shape of the carbon atom).
The tetrahedron in turn contains the octahedron, (diamond`s basic crystal form).
cube
tetrahedron
octahedron
In the laboratory
If the magic of the Carbon atom is combined with the magic of science, wonderful new materials can be created. Graphene, made in laboratories is a graphite sheet that has its unpaired electrons on each of its sides bonding together to form a double bond. It forms an indefinite large sheet that has magical properties of strength. With such a super fabric, it is only the imagination that limits what this magical fabric can be made into.
The pressures found under the earth that form diamonds are mostly vertical from top to bottom due to the weight of the rocks. In laboratories and in some large meteor collisions, there is sufficient horizontal pressure from the sides to align the graphite sheets from their normal “staggard” alignment into a higher energy “eclipsed” alignment.
The figures below show 2 layers of graphite. As the horizontal pressure on the layers aligns them from the low energy alignment shown at "A" to the high energy alignment, the crystal structure changes from the octahedron structure of diamond to the triangle prism of landolite.
A hexagonal crystal structure results called landolite which is much harder than diamond. It grows only in one direction forming a triangular cylinder, which is just a “straightened out” octahedron. This can be considered the thinnest nano-tube that can ever be made.
If the magic of the Carbon atom is combined with the magic of science, wonderful new materials can be created. Graphene, made in laboratories is a graphite sheet that has its unpaired electrons on each of its sides bonding together to form a double bond. It forms an indefinite large sheet that has magical properties of strength. With such a super fabric, it is only the imagination that limits what this magical fabric can be made into.
The pressures found under the earth that form diamonds are mostly vertical from top to bottom due to the weight of the rocks. In laboratories and in some large meteor collisions, there is sufficient horizontal pressure from the sides to align the graphite sheets from their normal “staggard” alignment into a higher energy “eclipsed” alignment.
The figures below show 2 layers of graphite. As the horizontal pressure on the layers aligns them from the low energy alignment shown at "A" to the high energy alignment, the crystal structure changes from the octahedron structure of diamond to the triangle prism of landolite.
A hexagonal crystal structure results called landolite which is much harder than diamond. It grows only in one direction forming a triangular cylinder, which is just a “straightened out” octahedron. This can be considered the thinnest nano-tube that can ever be made.
In the imagination....
If re-aligning the graphite sheets from “staggard” to “eclipsed” alignment results in a harder solid material as seen by diamonds and landolites, then re-aligning carbon atoms individually should result in stronger strings and sheets of carbon. This is done by rotating the atoms from the “staggard” alignment to the “eclipsed” alignment.
When enough stress is placed on the atoms, they form rings of 5 atoms that curl up into a sphere instead of rings of 6 atoms that form sheets.. As if the stressed out atoms curl up in a ball.
The carbon balls grow in a straight string of balls called nano-beads. The carbon balls can also grow in a circle of 5 balls called nano-rings.
The nano-beads are weaved into a 2 dimensional flat sheet. This flat sheet is layered. The empty spaces left behind in the structure is the same structure made by connecting nano-rings at right angles.
If you grow nano-rings at a right angles, the empty space left behind is the structure made by connecting the straight nano-beads and layering them at right angles.
It is as if these highly stressed carbon atoms curled up in their nano balls finally find themselves. In their great numbers they display their lost soul in emerging tetrahedrons.
If re-aligning the graphite sheets from “staggard” to “eclipsed” alignment results in a harder solid material as seen by diamonds and landolites, then re-aligning carbon atoms individually should result in stronger strings and sheets of carbon. This is done by rotating the atoms from the “staggard” alignment to the “eclipsed” alignment.
When enough stress is placed on the atoms, they form rings of 5 atoms that curl up into a sphere instead of rings of 6 atoms that form sheets.. As if the stressed out atoms curl up in a ball.
The carbon balls grow in a straight string of balls called nano-beads. The carbon balls can also grow in a circle of 5 balls called nano-rings.
The nano-beads are weaved into a 2 dimensional flat sheet. This flat sheet is layered. The empty spaces left behind in the structure is the same structure made by connecting nano-rings at right angles.
If you grow nano-rings at a right angles, the empty space left behind is the structure made by connecting the straight nano-beads and layering them at right angles.
It is as if these highly stressed carbon atoms curled up in their nano balls finally find themselves. In their great numbers they display their lost soul in emerging tetrahedrons.
THE END
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