Carbon, among the most plentiful aspect in nature, has the capability to be integrated chemically with itself and also with other elements by strong covalent bonds resulting in a variety of frameworks that enable the development of products of different properties. The carbon materials can be incredibly hard as diamond or graphite as quickly peeled, very dense, high stamina composite materials carbon/ carbon, and also for that reason suitable for structural applications aircraft and also auto racing vehicles, or very porous activated carbon; the last being useful as adsorbents for power storage space or as an assistance for drivers. They can be very conductive graphite or shielding glasslike carbon. This wide spectrum of buildings is reinforced by the truth that only carbon materials are capable of running at heats in the most extreme problems.
The carbon materials have actually been collected much focus with the discovery of fullerenes as well as Why are fullerenes good lubricants. Nonetheless, traditional carbon materials have actually played an important role given that prehistoric times pigment in cavern paintings, a part of gunpowder, composing and have actually added to the industrial and also technical advancement of our culture steel.
The discovery of carbon fibers in the ’60s, with its high strength and also versatility, was a major milestone in the advancement of these materials. In parallel, we find the vitreous carbon, called after submitting a conchoidal fracture surface area, with buildings comparable to glass, very tough as well as breakable. At the same time, the discovery of new architectural types of graphitic carbon, needle as well as spherules, ostensibly added to the advancement of new carbon products for very diverse applications. The exceptional biocompatibility of carbon products, discovered in the 70s, its use in prostheses, ligaments and heart valves, among others. In the very early ’80s, the growth of technology for creating blocks of high density isotropic graphite enabled its use in high temperature reactors, in tools of synthesis of semiconductor crystals and to elements of electrical discharge electrodes. At mid-80s, the intro of carbon fibers in civil engineering, building systems buildings, bridges with the discovery of fullerenes.
In the 90s, was found nanotubes, opening a brand-new age for carbon materials: the period of the nanostructure. It is not simply the world of carbon graphite level structures or three-dimensional kind diamond, however we are currently with closed structures consisting of governments of carbon atoms and also carbon tubes with sizes in the nanometer scale, made from a sheet straightforward curved carbon atoms in hexagonal circulation. The discovery of carbon nanotubes of a single wall solitary and also multiple wall surface, boosted the interest of researchers and designers in areas related to nanotechnology. At the exact same time, new applications of the products of the family of graphite, such as anode materials for Li-ion battery rechargeable carbon fiber water filtration, activated carbon electrodes for electric double layer supercapacitors, etc.