The most recognized forms of carbon are graphite and diamond, however, there exist other unique nanoscale allotropes of carbon such as graphene and fullerenes. These are sp2 hybridized carbon structures with either zero (flat-shaped) or positive (sphere-shaped) curvatures.
Meanwhile, sp2 hybridized carbon with negative curvature, called “schwarzite”, has been proposed theoretically, and its discovery has been a dream of some scientists in the field of carbon materials. It has been learned that carbon can be templated into some of the periodic pores of certain zeolites via vapor deposition but the templating is incomplete due to some pores simply being too narrow. This has thwarted making carbon schwartzites by templating routes.
Recently, a team of researchers from the Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), South Korea led by Director Rodney Ruoff and his colleagues at the University of Science and Technology of China led by Professor Yanwu Zhu, reported a discovery of a new form of carbon.
Zhu who led the USCT team said, “Professor Ruoff explained his interest in the triply periodic minimal surfaces that were described by the mathematician Schwartz, and how trivalently bonded carbon can in principle yield identical structures at the mathematical constructs. These are now referred to as “carbon schwarzite” structures, and that also can be called “negative curvature carbon”. I told him years ago that this was an exciting research topic and that it might be possible to find ways to collaborate on his suggestion.”
To read more, click here.