The development of carbon nanomaterials for many years is on the eve of a big breakthrough.

Carbon nanomaterials represented by fullerenes, metal fullerenes and carbon nanotubes have entered a relatively stable and solid research stage after the research climax in the 1990 s. With the deepening of research, carbon nanomaterials are showing more and more irreplaceable important roles in human production and life. Experts attending the 370th Xiangshan Science Conference with the theme of "Development Strategy of Carbon Nanomaterials" held in Beijing a few days ago believe that carbon nanomaterials represented by fullerenes are on the eve of major development and breakthroughs after years of accumulation., Carbon nanomaterials show encouraging application prospects.
 
Wang Chunru, executive chairman of the meeting and researcher of the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, made a review report entitled "Development and Application of Carbon Nanomaterials. Wang Chunru said that carbon nanomaterials are one of the most active research fields in nanoscience. The rapid development of nanoscience is largely due to the discovery of carbon nanomaterials such as fullerenes, nanotubes and graphene since the 1980 s. At present, carbon nanomaterials have expanded from fullerenes and nanotubes to nanohorns, graphene, and a series of new materials such as graphite alkyne, which have just appeared recently, and have greatly promoted the prosperity of nanoscience.
 
Taking fullerene as an example, its formation mechanism has been basically clear. Scientists have synthesized and separated fullerenes ranging from C20 to C240 by various methods. Further research also found that when metal atoms are embedded in fullerenes to form metal fullerenes or modify the surface of carbon cages, extremely unstable fullerenes violating the independent five-membered ring rule can also be stabilized, thus opening up a new field of fullerene research.
 
In recent years, China has also made great progress in the research of fullerene and metallo-fullerene functional materials. Many scientific research institutions such as the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen University, Peking University, etc. have done a lot of work in the synthesis, separation, chemical modification, molecular assembly, biomedicine, optoelectronic materials, and catalysis of fullerenes and endofullerenes. A series of achievements have been made in the research of new structure fullerenes and fullerene derivatives.
 
Carbon nanotubes have very high mechanical strength and elasticity, excellent conductor or semiconductor characteristics in electronics, and excellent nonlinear optical properties in optics. These excellent properties of nanotubes make it possible to be widely used in information, optoelectronics, life, energy, sensing, materials and other fields, and become one of the research hotspots in the field of nanoscience. At present, carbon nanotube science is still in rapid development, new discoveries and new applications emerge in endlessly.
 
Graphene is a kind of carbon nanomaterial developed rapidly in recent years. The thickness of single-layer graphene is only 0.335nm. Its biggest characteristic is that it conducts electricity very fast, far exceeding other conductor materials. It can be used in conductive films, electrode materials, sensors, etc. Graphene also has the advantage of high strength and can be widely used as an additive in high-strength composite materials. Although graphene was discovered less than 10 years ago, it has entered the golden age of research.
 
Experts at the meeting introduced that many unusual characteristics of new fullerene materials can almost find practical applications in modern technology and high-tech industries, and their potential application value in many high-tech fields may be critical and irreplaceable. The discovery of single molecule rectification and amplification effect based on fullerene shows that fullerene has a broad application prospect in nanoelectronics. The solar cell made of C60 derivatives has the characteristics of flexibility and low cost, and its product development is close to the practical stage.
 
Due to its high mechanical strength and elasticity, excellent semiconductor properties, as well as high specific surface area and strong adsorption characteristics, carbon nanotubes have great application prospects in the fields of energy storage, single electron transistors, high-energy micro-batteries, high-energy capacitors, high-temperature protection materials and so on. As a special form of nanotubes, carbon nanohorns will have important application value in the targeted delivery and sustained release of drugs due to the non-catalyst pollution, uniform nano-size structure and large specific surface area and cavity.
 
Since the discovery of graphene in 2004, the relevant research and news has not been interrupted. Now, for the first time, scientists have confirmed that graphene is the strongest material known in the world. Due to its excellent electrical, thermal and mechanical properties, graphene is expected to be widely used in high-performance nanoelectronic devices, composite materials, field emission materials, gas sensors and energy storage.
 
Industrial production is the basis for the application of carbon nanomaterials. Experts at the meeting pointed out that the current industrial production of carbon nanomaterials has not been completely resolved. Although carbon nanomaterials such as nanotubes and fullerenes can be mass-produced, technical problems such as high cost of producing fullerenes and difficult purification of nanotubes need to be solved urgently. The preparation of fullerenes and unconventional fullerenes is a huge challenge for researchers; for carbon nanotubes, the controllable preparation of their structure may be the focus of future research; and for graphene, how to obtain large areas, Uniform graphene is still a difficult problem that has not been overcome in the preparation of graphene.