Carbon: The Perfect Stranger

Conférence du Professeur Pierre Mothé-Esteves de l'Université fédérale de Rio de Janeiro (Brésil) organisée par le Laboratoire d’Innovation Moléculaire et Applications (LIMA).

Résumé

“Can you remember, remember my name, As I flow through your life”… This verse from the Deep Purple classic song Perfect Strangers can be applied to our core element in organic chemistry: the carbon atom. Although we may think that we know everything about its structure and pure forms, this element still brings us surprises in the XXI century. We will see that predicting and synthesizing new carbon allotropes is possible and may represent an inspiring synthetic challenge. We show how new allotropes of carbon, containing atoms with different hybridizations and proportions, can be envisioned, and synthesized.