The graphite found in your favorite pencil could have instead been the diamond your mother always wears. What made the difference? Researchers are finding out. How molten carbon crystallizes into ...

The bonding also explains the hardness of diamond and its high melting point. Significant quantities of energy would be needed to separate atoms so strongly bonded together. Each carbon atom is bonded ...

However, graphite still has a very high melting and boiling point because the strong covalent bonds that hold the carbon atoms together in the layers require a lot of heat energy to break. Diamond is ...

Molten carbon can crystallize into diamond or graphite, but it has been difficult to study this process. New simulations show that graphite can sometimes "hijack" the pathway that would lead to ...