Graphite
How can a material have both high-tech applications, such as for sports goods, and yet also have the very slippery attribute as the basis of the lead in a pencil? A common misconception is that pencil lead is lead; it is in fact graphite. Graphite, carbon fibre and diamond are all allotropes of carbon – different atomic structures based on the same element.
Both graphite and diamond demonstrate, on an atomic level, the importance of material properties and functionality when structure is altered. The ultimate hardness of diamond is based on a triangular tetrahedral structure, while graphite has a layered structure –imagine layers of chicken wire on top of one another. It is this layering that creates the slipperiness of graphite, three ...
Get Materials for Design now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
