beaded vase

Bang-Rui's mother knew my hobby of making beaded molecules. So she gave me a beautiful beaded vase she made. It is basically a pillar-shaped C₈₄ with the top surface removed.

Here is a bead model of pillar-shape C₈₄ I made before.

The other two smaller fullerenes in the same homologous series are C₆₀ and C₇₂.

Pillar-shaped C60 and related C72

There are 1812 isomers of C₆₀. Only the one with the shape of a soccer ball is stable enough and can be synthesized routinely. However, chemists in the Xiamen university have successfully created a few chlorinated isomers of C₆₀ three years ago. I will try to make bead models of them when I find time. Here I would like to show the bead model of another elusive isomer of C₆₀ with pillar shape (point group, D_6h) which might be found someday.

Of course, there is a whole series of pillar-shape fullerenes by simply inserting short rings of carbon nanotubes. Here is the bead model of C72, which is the second one in this series.