Carbon’s allotrope explosion demonstrates how the element is both versatile and fickle

For centuries the only carbon allotropes humans knew were diamond and graphite. But in the 20th century scientists occasionally reported new and unusual forms, including these superstars. In 2004, the same year the Royal Society of Chemistry launched Chemistry World, scientists found two further new nanometre-sized allotropes of carbon, otherwise known as nanocarbons. One was carbon nanodots, fluorescent carbon nanoparticles which are less than 10nm in size, discovered when purifying nanotubes. The other, more famously, was graphene, most often thought of as single sheets of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern. Often called a ‘wonder material’, graphene won its discoverers Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov the Nobel prize in physics in 2010.

Today, scientists have predicted over 1600 different carbon allotropes, yet we know little about them. Have chemists been carried away by their romance with carbon? We might even have asked the same thing before theoretical possibilities proliferated. Challenges in controllably making graphene and carbon nanotubes mean they’re hard to use widely. As well as being versatile, carbon seems to be fickle – but considering why it’s fickle raises important questions.