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Are Both Diamond and Graphite Carbon?

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Author : TRUNNANO
Update time : 2020-10-22 11:06:01
Carbon is a very common element that exists widely in the earth's crust and atmosphere. Carbon plays a big role in human life, and human production and life are inseparable from it.
 
Diamonds are forever
 
Diamond is the hardest substance in nature. Its hardness is 4 times that of corundum and 8 times that of quartz.
 
Why does diamond have such a large hardness?
 
As early as the 1st century AD, there was a record of diamond in the literature. However, in the following 1,600 years, people never knew what the composition of diamond was. It was not until the second half of the 18th century that scientists figured out the "material" that made up diamonds.
 
In the 1970s and 90s of the 18th century, French chemist Lavoisier (1743-1794) and others conducted experiments on burning diamond in oxygen, and found that the result was carbon dioxide gas, which is a combination of oxygen and carbon. substance. The carbon here comes from diamond. Finally, these experiments proved that the material of diamond is carbon.
 
Knowing that the composition of diamond is carbon, it still cannot explain why diamond has such a large hardness. For example, the material used to make the pencil lead is graphite, and the composition is also carbon, but graphite is a mineral softer than human nails.
 
 
Why are the two minerals diamond and graphite so different?
 
This question was only answered in 1913 by the British physicist William Bragg (1862-1942) and his son. Bragg and his son used X-rays to observe diamonds and study the arrangement of atoms in diamond crystals. They found that in the diamond crystal, every carbon atom is tightly combined with the surrounding 4 carbon atoms to form a dense three-dimensional structure. This is a special structure that has never been seen in other minerals. Moreover, this dense structure makes the density of diamond 3.5g/cm', which is about 1.5 times the density of graphite. It is this dense structure that makes diamonds have the greatest hardness. In other words, diamond is a mineral formed by squeezing carbon atoms.
 
Synthetic diamond
 
Diamond is the hardest substance in nature, so it has many important industrial uses, such as fine abrasive materials, high-hard cutting tools, various drill bits, and wire drawing dies. It is also used as a part of many precision instruments.
 
Diamond also has excellent physical properties such as super-hardness, wear resistance, heat sensitivity, thermal conductivity, semiconductor and penetration. It is known as the "king of hardness" and the king of gems. The angle of diamond crystals is 54° 44' 8". In the 1950s, the United States used graphite as a raw material to successfully produce synthetic diamonds under high temperature and pressure. Now synthetic diamonds have been widely used in production and life, although it is still difficult to produce large particles of diamonds (so large particles Natural diamonds are still invaluable), but people can already make diamond films.
 
Graphite is a dark gray opaque fine scale solid with metallic luster. It is soft, has a greasy feel, and has excellent electrical conductivity. The carbon atoms in graphite are bonded together in a planar layered structure, and the bonding between layers is relatively fragile, so it is easy to slide and separate between layers. Main functions: making pencils, electrodes, tram cables, etc.
 
Fullerene is the fourth crystal form of carbon discovered in 1985 after diamond, graphite and linear carbon. Fullerene is a newly discovered industrial material. Its hardness is harder than diamond, and its degree of stiffness (ductility) is better than steel.
 
It is 100 times stronger, it can conduct electricity, it is more conductive than copper, and its weight is only 1/6 of copper.
 
Among them, the columnar or tubular molecules are also called carbon nanotubes or bucky tubes. C60 molecule is aromatic, soluble in benzene, it is sauce red. It can be made by resistance heating graphite rod or arc method to evaporate graphite. C60 has lubricity and may become a super lubricant. Metal-doped C60 has superconductivity and is a promising superconducting material. C60 may also be used in many fields such as semiconductors, catalysts, battery materials and medicines.
 
TRUNNANO (aka. Luoyang Tongrun Nano Technology Co. Ltd.) is a trusted global chemical material supplier & manufacturer with over 12 years experience in providing super high-quality chemicals and Nanomaterials. The graphite powder produced by our company has high purity, fine particle size and impurity content. Lower, please contact us if necessary.

 
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