A few years ago, scientists made an exciting breakthrough that could revolutionize the world of science, with particular emphasis on chemistry. Called buckminsterfullerene, or the buckyball, for short, this newly-discovered molecule has scientists the world over scrambling to find new and unusual uses for this unique molecular oddity.
The buckyball is a new form of carbon, previously undiscovered until the early 1980's. Before this exhilarating discovery, there were only two known forms of "pure" carbon to be found on Earth. The first is graphite, the slippery, soft, metallic-grey material used in pencils. Contrasted radically to graphite is the second form of pure carbon: diamond, practically the antithesis of graphite, it's an incredibly rigid crystal. Yet both graphite and diamond are made up of pure carbon. Also made with pure carbon is the buckyball, consisting of a practically inconceivable 60 carbon atoms, all linked together to form a hollow, spherical ball.
The 60 carbon atoms form what is called a truncated icosahedron, which literally looks like a soccer ball. It consists of 12 regular pentagons and 20 regular hexagons. The C60 molecule does not bond readily to other atoms or molecules, as all bonds are to another carbon atom.
The first buckminster-fullerene C60 was actually discovered in 1985. It seems to be that the history of fullerenes research is very short.However it now has become clear that fullerenes exist much longer than mankind. They have been found in interstellar dust and meteor rocks and seem to be present everywhere in the universe. So one might be astonished that their discovery took that long. But since then fullerene research skyrocketed in a way that may only be compared with the field of high temperature superconductivity. The timetable below summarizes only a few highlights in this process.
The followings are the history of discovery of fullerenes