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Carbon is an element that is very familiar to you. This element also has a lot of specialities. Food, cloth, oils, soap, cosmetics, fuels, medicines, plant-animal body, paints, rubber, paper, plastic etc. are primarily carbon compounds.

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Carbon is one of the elements seen in nature both in elemental and combined states. The charcoal residue left behind when the substances undergo combustion is due to the presence of carbon compounds in them. The black smoke formed when substances burn is also due to the presence of carbon. New compounds of carbon are being discovered or created almost everyday. Even all the total number of compounds formed by all other elements can’t be equal to one tenth of the compounds of carbon.

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Different forms of the same element having different physical properties but with same chemical properties are known as Allotropes
and this phenomenon is called Allotrophy. Diamond, graphite, fullerene, graphene etc are the crystalline allotropes of carbon.

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Diamond is the hardest allotrope of carbon.

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Very hard
Transparent
Not a conductor of electricity
High thermal conductivity
High refractive index
Uses of diamond:
Used to make ornaments
Used for cutting glass

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Graphite is the softest crystalline allotrope of carbon.

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Soft and slippery
Grey in colour
Conductor of electricity
Non volatile
Uses of graphite:
Used to make ‘pencil lead’
Used to make electrodes of dry cells
Used as a solid lubricant

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Fullerenes have a hollow structure consisting of pentagons and hexagons. They are known as Bucky balls. Fullerenes with cylindrical structure are called carbon nano tubes and they are known as Bucky tubes.
They could revolutionise the field of information technology.

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Graphenes are two dimensional sheets of hexagonal rings formed by carbon. Graphenes resemble a single layer of graphite. It can be said that graphenes are the basic units of the allotropes of carbon, like graphite and fullerence.
Characteristics of grapheme:
Two hundred times stronger than steel
Conductor of heat and electricity
Graphene has already emerged as a material that has revolutionized the field of nanotechnology.