Nanotubes and Buckyballs

dpeagler

Hello everyone,

I am a novice to the chemistry world. I have just had a couple of general classes. I have recently, in some of my other studies began to encounter nanotubes and buckyballs and I was wondering if someone could explain them in more depth. I know that carbon is tetravalent and thus wants to gain four electrons to be stable, but if you look at the structure of one of these two objects there are only three bonds.

Does one of the bonds consist of two electrons being shared between two different atoms?

And is it possible for any other element to form structures like this or is carbon 'special'?

Thanks for any information,
Dane Peagler