Chemical Anisotropies of Carbon Nanotubes and Fullerenes Caused by the Curvature Directivity

✍ Scribed by Junqian Li; Guixiao Jia; Yongfan Zhang

• Book ID: 101832485
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 183 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0947-6539
• DOI: 10.1002/chem.200700067

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The directional‐curvature theory is developed as a rational basis for the strain energy and the chemical reactivity in single‐walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and fullerenes. The directional curvature K~D~ and its mean K~M~, derived from this theory, cover the overall curvatures of their bonds and atoms and break through the limitations of the pyramidalized‐angle θ~p~ approach, which is only available to atomic curvature. The directional‐curvature theory demonstrates that K~D~ and K~M~ depend directly on the strain or reactive binding energies of the bonds and atoms and that there is approximate curvature conservation in SWCNTs and fullerenes. Application of this theory to addition reactions of various SWCNTs and fullerenes shows that the slope of the straight line between the strain or binding energies and K~D~ is close to a constant, which helps clarify the puzzle as to why some functionalizations of C~70~ occur at the relatively flat midsection.