Carbon

Well it might not look important but Carbon is unique, we often hear Carbon Dioxide, but Carbon alone is a very precious element. Carbon is one of the oldest elements known to mankind. Carbon is a chief element in coal which we have used since years to create fire and generate heat as well as electricity.

Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe by mass after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. It is present in all known lifeforms, and in the human body, carbon is the second most abundant element by mass (about 18.5%) after oxygen. This abundance, together with the unique diversity of organic compounds and their unusual polymer-forming ability at the temperatures commonly encountered on Earth, make this element the chemical basis of all known life.

There are several allotropes of carbon of which the best known are graphite, diamond, and amorphous carbon. The physical properties of carbon vary widely with the allotropic form. For example, diamond is highly transparent, while graphite is opaque and black. Diamond is among the hardest materials known, while graphite is soft enough to form a streak on paper. Diamond has a very low electric conductivity, while graphite is a very good conductor. Also, diamond has the highest thermal conductivity of all known materials under normal conditions. All the allotropic forms are solids under normal conditions but graphite is the most thermodynamically stable.

There has been a new revolution called nanotechnology ,where science tries to make everything as small as possible. I had once attended a seminar in the UK council, where I first heard about carbon nanotubes, which again involves carbon.

CARBON NANOTUBE

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon with a nanostructure that can have a length-to-diameter ratio greater than 1,000,000. These cylindrical carbon molecules have novel properties that make them potentially useful in many applications in nanotechnology, electronics, optics and other fields of materials science, as well as extensive use in arcology and architectural fields. They exhibit extraordinary strength and unique electrical properties, and are efficient conductors of heat. Inorganic nanotubes have also been synthesized.