Skip to main content

Allotropes: Structure Sets Property

This video presents the same text shown beside it, spoken and on screen. It adds nothing the text does not say.

State

Allotropes are different structural forms of the same element in the same physical state, their differing bonding arrangements alone accounting for differing properties.

Show

Diamond's 3D network of single bonds is extremely hard, while graphite's weakly stacked layers are soft and slippery.

Watch for

Treating diamond and graphite as two different compounds, rather than one element in different structural forms, misreads what allotropy means.