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What Are These Things Good For?

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When fullerenes were first discovered, there was much excitement about
practical applications. It was speculated that buckyballs would make
great lubricants, rolling like little ball bearings between other
molecules. Or perhaps drugs could be trapped inside the cages, then
released slowly by a triggering mechanism that could break open the
cages inside the body.

In fact, no commercial applications of round fullerene cage molecules
have appeared yet, despite explorations by such research giants as IBM,
Xerox, and DuPont. Some, like the lubricant idea, did not show
sufficient economic potential; other lubricants are far cheaper. Highly
speculative ideas like buckyball rocket fuel have not been totally
rejected (see http://www.islandone.org/APC/Electric/12.html, which
rejects the C60 ion engine, but not the rocket fuel).... but are not
exactly making headlines, either. And using buckyball materials as
superconductors suffers from the same problems as other
superconductors-- it's just not clear how to commercialize that quality.

But development is ongoing. It is rare for a new material to leap into
the commercial sphere right away, even though that is always the promise
right after discovery. A more likely time scale is /decades/, so don't
close the book yet-- even on the rocket fuel.

The most promising areas of investigation involve modification of the
C_60 (or other) cage. Drug delivery is still a hope, once we learn how
to attach the appropriate ligands onto the outside of the cage.
Buckyballs have also shown the ability to block the HIV virus from
attacking healthy cells under certain conditions. The question is, can
it be controlled?

It also turns out that vaporizing C_60 leads to a smoother diamond film
than vaporizing graphite. Maybe this will help grow tough protective
coatings with better properties than what we have now.

And finally, there is still talk of using buckyballs in solar cells or
batteries. But personally, I am /very/ skeptical of this possibility. It
seems that every wacko new technology is suggested as a way to provide
easy, cheap energy or to improve energy storage. Let's not go that way
with the buckyball.

But wait. I have left out the most important practical application of
buckyballs! The most important and useful thing that comes out of this
sort of research is /new ideas and paths of investigation/. Research
breeds more research, which will eventually lead to something genuinely
commercializable. It's true. You just have to keep pursuing the leads
and asking more and more questions, and eventually you'll hit upon
something that the competitors never dreamed of.

And so, I conclude this page on an upbeat note. The original research
into pure C_60 and the other round fullerenes was a bust in terms of
immediate commercial applications, but without this research, we
wouldn't have gotten into nanotubes or a whole host of other tangential
pursuits. Read on, for the this is the beginning of the story, not the end.

Nanotubes  are quite intriguing, and may actually have
some practical uses. Or maybe they're just the next step in the
process.... only time (and perseverance) will tell.

/Return to the Main Fullerene Page  /

Copyright © 1997-present Kim Allen

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Email: kimall (at symbol) mindspring.com