This makes it the most symetrical and most stable of all the fullerenes. As the molecule orginates from graphite it would be correct to assume the molecule contains hexagons, but in order for the molecule to form a closed cage it is necessary to incorporate pentagons into the structure. Indeed this network of fused pentagons and hexagons is characteristic of all the fullerenes. The answer is no. On closer examination it is possible to see the double bonds only occur at the fusion between hexagons.
Pentagons play no part in any double bonding.
Secondly the curvature of the balls leads to less effective overlap of the sp 2 hybridised pi bonding orbitals, in turn leading to leading to a decrease in the stabalization that results from a delocalised molecular orbital. Indeed the X-ray structure of the product of one such reaction was used to prove the football shape of C 60 . For a more visual look at buckyballs link to J. Lauhers structure library or to Boris Pevzners image gallery . Return to contents 5. Since their discovery in 1985 there has been much excitement about the possible uses of buckyballs.