Imprisoned Molecules 'Quantum Rattle' in Their Cages

Imprisoned Molecules 'Quantum Rattle' in Their Cages

ScienceDaily (Aug. 20, 2012) — Scientists have discovered that a space inside a special type of carbon molecule can be used to imprison other smaller molecules such as hydrogen or water.

A prison for hydrogen or water !

Amazing stuff they can do these days. These guys think it can be used to brighten the images of MRI scans, and create new types of computer memory. I heard somewhere that these 'Bucky balls' have something to do with hydrogen fuel or something like that. But anyway i think it's really cool that they can do stuff like that.

Yeah Fullerenes are pretty cool, Hemoglobin in you blood kinda works in the same way it traps O2 and then brings it around your body and then replaces it with CO2 and takes it out. I'm sure these will make great filters and pigments and all sorts of advancements to our society.

Originally posted by BriGuyTM90
Yeah Fullerenes are pretty cool, Hemoglobin in you blood kinda works in the same way it traps O2 and then brings it around your body and then replaces it with CO2 and takes it out. I'm sure these will make great filters and pigments and all sorts of advancements to our society.

They can do a surgical procedure on a molecule !

They used a set of surgical synthetic procedures to open the C60 'cage' producing an opening large enough to 'push' a H2 or H2O molecule inside at high temperature and pressure. The system was then cooled down to stabilize the entrapped molecule inside and the cage was surgically repaired to reproduce a C60

There are also other organic compounds called Catenanes. they re interlinked chains of Alkanes and benzene rings that you can form long chains of as molecules with. They look a lot more complex and hectic.


Fullerenes have always had a simplistic beauty to me. A perfect truncated icosahedron that appears in nature. Chemistry is fun and important. Nice to see there's people still interested in in the field.

So whats next?
A new type of imprisonment by shrinking us down first
and then sticking us in one of those carbon molecules.
It would also save them billions from building all those
bulky, ugly nowadays prisons.
Isnt that condemnment or what!!!

reply to post by maxella1


Well, you can trap atoms in fullerenes, but that's probably not what you'd use for hydrogen fuel storage, just due to logistical issues. What they're looking at are things like zeolites and other types of metal-oxide nanostructuring. It's the same kind of idea (storing hydrogen in numerous molecular-scale containers) but these are easier to work with, as well as having some novel properties (opening/closing based on EM fields, that sort of thing).

Let me out. I want to be free. I want to mingle with the rest of reality. Can you imagine why anyone would want to imprison a molecule? Did the molecule break some law or something that made them lock it up?