Nanotechnology:Carbon and its promise

Carbon is the sixth element of the periodic table. It also is the element that makes the chemical basis for softer biological materials (life) as well as the hardest material of the Mohsscale (The Mohs scale of mineral hardness characterizes the scratch resistance of various minerals through the ability of a harder material to scratch a softer material); diamond. Amorphous carbon and graphite are two other well-known allotropes (different forms of existence of an element) of carbon. In the recent past two Nobel prizes were awarded for carbon based nanomaterial. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1996 was awarded jointly to Robert F Curl Jr., Sir Harold W Kroto and Richard E Smalley ‘for their discovery of fullerenes’ and the Nobel Prize in Physics 2010 was awarded jointly to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene.” – See more at: http://www.nation.lk/edition/free/item/30213-nanotechnology-carbon-and-its-promise.html#sthash.gbHSV9M0.dpuf