3 ms·
It's fun to imagine. I'll admit I did as well, but you wouldn't want to wear it. Broken rings no doubt turn into nanotubes, and free carbon nanotubes have rough
by Filligree 7y ago
It's fun to imagine. I'll admit I did as well, but you wouldn't want to wear it. Broken rings no doubt turn into nanotubes, and free carbon nanotubes have roughly the same properties as asbestos.
- skykooler 7y agoIn this case, they wouldn't turn into nanotubes but rather nanowires. I have no idea what the properties of carbon nanowires are though.
- logfromblammo 7y agoDepends on the bond pattern. Alternating single and triple bonds (polycarbyne or polyyne) would be arrow-straight, rigid, semiconducting, untwisting, and explosive in bulk. Triple C-C bonds are an open invitation for cross-linking. In order to be stable, they have to be capped with a less-reactive group than hydrogen. If you break a ring, and get a C18 with naked electrons instead of protons on the ends, that's going to react with something, quickly and probably energetically. That bond-bending energy has to go somewhere, too. If you break the ring, you're probably going to break the molecule near the antipode, too, giving you two highly reactive C9s, or a C10 and a C8. Like if you cut a bowstring at full draw, you're probably going to break one of the limbs of the bow.