A 'buckyball' — a spherical molecule made up of 60 carbon atoms — has been turned into a vial just big enough to hold a single water molecule, complete with its own removable stopper.
Liangbing Gan of Peking University, Wim Klopper of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and their team created a 60-carbon fullerene sphere with an orifice big enough for water to pass through. They show that a phosphate group can be easily attached and removed from the edge of the orifice, where it acts as a plug for the fullerene vial. With this 'stopper' removed (pictured left), water is incorporated into the vial 230 times faster than with it attached (right).
The authors say that uses for the vial could include acting as a carrier for drugs in the body.
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Chemistry: Tiny molecular 'water bottle'. Nature 468, 602 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/468602c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/468602c
