Talk:Graphene
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From the article:
"It is not an allotrope of carbon because the sheet is of finite size and other elements appear at the edge"
For that matter, the same occurs for diamond and graphite. Diamond is merely a matrix of carbon atoms bonded in a tetrahedral shape. Graphite is series of benzene rings. In both allotropes, each carbon atom has a total of four bonds, assuming that the matrix is unbounded (in graphite, there are two single bonds and one double bond per atom). When the matrix ends, the carbon atoms typically bond to hydrogen atoms at their surface to terminate the extra loose bonds. And yet, the two are still considered allotropes.
It is not, then, for this reason that graphene is not a new allotrope.
From my reading, graphene is similar to graphite in that it is a single layer of a graphite matrix. See here (IUPAC). Note that graphene is a singular sheet of graphite, just as goose is the singular of geese. For this reason, graphene is not an allotrope, because graphene and graphite are the same.
Also, note that graphite is a 'quasi-infinite' matrix.
Is graphene really a 2D crystal???, graphene is not , strictly speaking, a crystal in the full sense of the word, since I don't think you can speak of "translational symmetry" because that would mean you could consider its dimentions to be much , much larger than the unit cell , which is definitely not the case for graphene. --85.138.18.55 18:07, 12 April 2006 (UTC) Pedro
