ATLANTA, March 16 (UPI) -- Carbon fullerenes sink in salt water, report Georgia scientists, a finding potentially important for environmentally sound nano manufacturing.
Fullerenes, molecules composed of 60 carbon atoms, have potential applications in pharmaceuticals, as lubricants, as semiconductors and in energy conversion. Large scale manufacture could get under way in just two years.
But fullerenes may also be dangerous to the environment. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and Rice University in Houston, Texas, are studying ways to keep nano-pollution from harming the Earth's ecosystem
Researchers found fullerenes clump in water. They also found ways to control fullerenes in water - vital to managing them should they get into the environment.
One thing they discovered is that fullerenes sink in salt water.
"At some level, salt is present, even in groundwater," said John Fortner, a Georgia Tech research scientist. "We found that even in water with the normal salt concentration of groundwater, (aggregated fullerenes) still remain suspended for months. However, in simulated sea water, the particles are neutralized and sink in a matter of hours."
