Mirror-image forms of corannulene molecules could lead to exciting new possibilities in nanotechnology
Friday, August 29, 2014 - 08:30
in Physics & Chemistry
Corannulene is a bowl-shaped polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon with a skeleton of bonded carbon atoms equivalent to a segment of the buckminsterfullerene or 'buckyball'—a soccer-ball-like structure of 60 carbon atoms. This similarity to the buckyball has led to corannulene being dubbed the 'buckybowl'. Chemists are interested in the chemical potential of corannulenes as catalysts and in nanotechnology applications, but exploring the potential of these molecules is complicated because they invert rapidly between their mirror-image or 'chiral' forms (Fig. 1).