Emirati helps in carbon discovery
Researcher is part of a team that has uncovered a new form of the element that could provide far-reaching benefits for modern industry. Similar discoveries have led to Nobel Prize awards for the scientists involved, Daniel Bardsley reports
An Emirati researcher has helped to discover a form of carbon that could be put to widespread use in electronics and other fields of modern industry.
Solar power is one area that could benefit from the work of Mohammed Al Fahim, 29, who, in collaboration with other scientists, has published details of novamene, an allotrope, or physical and structural form, of the element carbon.
Novel allotropes of carbon, once their significance is recognised, can take the scientific world by storm. Nobel Prizes were awarded on two occasions for such discoveries.
The importance of the latest research will become apparent over time. So far, novamene exists in theoretical form as a computer simulation, as it has not yet been synthesised in a laboratory.
Novamene’s key characteristic is that it combines structural elements of two other forms of carbon, namely diamond, which does not conduct electricity, and graphene, which is highly conductive.
In a paper published in the British scientific journal Heliyon, the scientists suggested that a hexagonal diamond structure [in which the carbon atoms are arranged in three dimensions] could be “stitched together” with graphene, which has a two- dimensional hexagonal structure.
The authors speculated that this could lead to the creation of hundreds more allotropes of carbon.
Surrounding a core of graphene with an insulating hexagonal diamond structure could lead to many applications in electronics. Among them are the creation of photovoltaic cells, which are used in solar power. There could be applications in infra-red light detection or the production of novel electrodes or transistors.
“Different allotropes would serve as an ideal platform, providing flexibility for the desired application,” the researchers wrote.
The building block of life as part of organic molecules, carbon is an exceptionally adaptable and useful element. When pure it can exist in various types because it has four electrons [ negatively charged particles] that are available to form bonds. The paper on novamene was published last month. In August 2015, Mr Al Fahim, his younger brother Rashed, now 24, and Dr Larry Burchfield, the founder, president and chief executive officer of the US-based Radiochemistry Society, filed an application to trademark novamene, although the application process was not completed and the application is no longer active. As well as diamond and graphene, other allotropes of carbon include graphite, charcoal and soot. Another key type are fullerenes, which were discovered in the 1980s when it was found that molecules with 60 or 70 carbon atoms had been produced in the laboratory.
Existing as spheres, tubes and other forms, and having widespread uses in electronics, nanotechnology and other areas, the fullerenes earned the three researchers credited with their discovery – Robert Curl, Sir Harold Kroto and Richard Smalley – the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1996.
The creation of graphene also led to a Nobel Prize being awarded, with Sir Andre Geim and Sir Konstantin Novoselov given the physics prize in 2010 after synthesising the substance in the laboratory. As is noted in the Heliyon paper, novamene has not yet been synthesised, but the work carried out so far does indicate, among much else, how the carbon atoms would fit together in novamene. The study therefore provides, the authors claim, “the necessary starting ground for future investigations”.
“The main challenge ahead is the synthesis of actual crystals of novamene and their experimental characterisation,” they said.
Dr Burchfield is the senior author of the Heliyon paper. As well as he and Mr Al Fahim, the other authors are Richard Wittman, of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a US government laboratory in Washington state; and Francesco Delodovici and Nicola Manini, both of the University of Milan in Italy. Rashed Al Fahim is credited in media reports as co-discoverer of novamene, although he is not listed as one of the paper’s authors.