Robert Floyd Curl Jr. (August 23, 1933 – July 3, 2022) was an American chemist who was Pitzer–Schlumberger Professor of Natural Sciences and professor of chemistry at
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres.
Rice University comp ...
.
He was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry () is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outst ...
in 1996 for the discovery of the
nanomaterial
Nanomaterials describe, in principle, chemical substances or materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 100 nm (the usual definition of nanoscale).
Nanomaterials research takes a materials science ...
buckminsterfullerene
Buckminsterfullerene is a type of fullerene with the formula . It has a cage-like fused-ring structure ( truncated icosahedron) made of twenty hexagons and twelve pentagons, and resembles a football. Each of its 60 carbon atoms is bonded to i ...
, and hence the
fullerene
A fullerene is an allotropes of carbon, allotrope of carbon whose molecules consist of carbon atoms connected by single and double bonds so as to form a closed or partially closed mesh, with fused rings of five to six atoms. The molecules may ...
class of materials, along with
Richard Smalley
Richard Errett Smalley (June 6, 1943 – October 28, 2005) was an American chemist who was the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry, Physics, and Astronomy at Rice University. In 1996, along with Robert Curl, also a professor of ...
(also of Rice University) and
Harold Kroto
Sir Harold Walter Kroto (born Harold Walter Krotoschiner; 7 October 1939 – 30 April 2016) was an English chemist. He shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for their discovery of fullerenes. He was th ...
of the
University of Sussex
The University of Sussex is a public university, public research university, research university located in Falmer, East Sussex, England. It lies mostly within the city boundaries of Brighton and Hove. Its large campus site is surrounded by the ...
.
Early life and education
Born in
Alice, Texas
Alice is a city in and the county seat of Jim Wells County, Texas, Jim Wells County, Texas, United States, in the South Texas region of the state. The population was 19,104 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. Alice was established in 18 ...
, United States, Curl was the son of a
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...
minister.
Due to his father's missionary work, his family moved several times within southern and southwestern Texas, and the elder Curl was involved in starting the San Antonio Medical Center's Methodist Hospital.
Curl attributes his interest in chemistry to a
chemistry set
A chemistry set is an educational toy allowing the user (typically a teenager) to perform simple chemistry experiments.
History
Forerunners
The forerunners of the chemistry set were 17th-century books on "natural magick", "which all excelle ...
he received as a nine-year-old, recalling that he ruined the finish on his mother's porcelain stove when
nitric acid
Nitric acid is an inorganic compound with the formula . It is a highly corrosive mineral acid. The compound is colorless, but samples tend to acquire a yellow cast over time due to decomposition into nitrogen oxide, oxides of nitrogen. Most com ...
boiled over onto it.
He is a graduate of
Thomas Jefferson High School in
San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio ( ; Spanish for "Anthony of Padua, Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the List of Texas metropolitan areas, third-largest metropolitan area in Texa ...
.
His high school offered only one year of chemistry instruction, but in his senior year his chemistry teacher gave him special projects to work on.
Curl received a
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...
in chemistry from
Rice Institute
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is an international Agricultural science, agricultural research and training organization with its headquarters in Los Baños, Laguna, in the Philippines, and offices in seventeen countries. IRR ...
(now Rice University) in 1954.
He was attracted to the reputation of both the school's academics and football team, and the fact that at the time it charged no tuition.
He earned his
doctorate
A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...
in chemistry from the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, in 1957.
[Robert F. Curl, Jr](_blank)
/ref> At Berkeley, he worked in the laboratory of Kenneth Pitzer
Kenneth Sanborn Pitzer (January 6, 1914 – December 26, 1997) was an American physical and theoretical chemist, educator, and university president. He was described as "one of the most influential physical chemists of his era" whose work "span ...
, then dean of the college of chemistry, with whom he would become a lifelong collaborator. Curl's graduate research involved performing infrared spectroscopy
Infrared spectroscopy (IR spectroscopy or vibrational spectroscopy) is the measurement of the interaction of infrared radiation with matter by absorption, emission, or reflection. It is used to study and identify chemical substances or functio ...
to determine the bond angle
Molecular geometry is the three-dimensional arrangement of the atoms that constitute a molecule. It includes the general shape of the molecule as well as bond lengths, bond angles, torsional angles and any other geometrical parameters that deter ...
of disiloxane
Disiloxane has the chemical formula . It is the simplest known siloxane with hydrogen only R groups. The molecule contains six equivalent Si−H bonds and two equivalent Si−O bonds. Disiloxane exists as a colorless, pungent gas under standard c ...
.
Scientific career
Curl was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
with E. B. Wilson, where he used microwave spectroscopy
Microwave spectroscopy is the spectroscopy method that employs microwaves, i.e. electromagnetic radiation at GHz frequencies, for the study of matter.
History
The ammonia molecule NH3 is shaped like a pyramid 0.38 Å in height, with an equilatera ...
to study the bond rotation barrier
In chemistry, rotamers are chemical species that differ from one another primarily due to rotations about one or more single bonds. Various arrangements of atoms in a molecule that differ by rotation about single bonds can also be referred to as ...
s of molecules. After that, he joined the faculty of Rice University in 1958. He inherited the equipment and graduate students of George Bird, a professor who was leaving for a job at Polaroid. Curl's early research involved the microwave spectroscopy of chlorine dioxide
Chlorine dioxide is a chemical compound with the formula ClO2 that exists as yellowish-green gas above 11 °C, a reddish-brown liquid between 11 °C and −59 °C, and as bright orange crystals below −59 °C. It is usually ...
. His research program included both experiment and theory, mainly focused on detection and analysis of free radical
A daughter category of ''Ageing'', this category deals only with the biological aspects of ageing.
Ageing
Biogerontology
Biological processes
Causes of death
Cellular processes
Gerontology
Life extension
Metabolic disorders
Metabolism
...
s using microwave spectroscopy and tunable lasers. He used these observations to develop the theory of their fine structure
In atomic physics, the fine structure describes the splitting of the spectral lines of atoms due to electron spin and relativistic corrections to the non-relativistic Schrödinger equation. It was first measured precisely for the hydrogen atom ...
and hyperfine structure
In atomic physics, hyperfine structure is defined by small shifts in otherwise degenerate electronic energy levels and the resulting splittings in those electronic energy levels of atoms, molecules, and ions, due to electromagnetic multipole int ...
, as well as information about their structure and the kinetics of their reactions.
Nobel Prize
Curl's research at Rice involved the fields of infrared and microwave spectroscopy. Curl's research inspired Richard Smalley to come to Rice in 1976 with the intention of collaborating with Curl. In 1985, Curl was contacted by Harold Kroto, who wanted to use a laser beam apparatus built by Smalley to simulate and study the formation of carbon chains in red giant
A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass (roughly 0.3–8 solar masses ()) in a late phase of stellar evolution. The stellar atmosphere, outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius large and the surface t ...
stars. Smalley and Curl had previously used this apparatus to study semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities (" doping") to its crystal structure. When two regions with different doping level ...
s such as silicon
Silicon is a chemical element; it has symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic lustre, and is a tetravalent metalloid (sometimes considered a non-metal) and semiconductor. It is a membe ...
and germanium
Germanium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is lustrous, hard-brittle, grayish-white and similar in appearance to silicon. It is a metalloid or a nonmetal in the carbon group that is chemically ...
. They were initially reluctant to interrupt their experiments on these semiconductor materials to use their apparatus for Kroto's experiments on carbon, but eventually gave in.
They indeed found the long carbon chains they were looking for, but also found an unexpected product that had 60 carbon atoms. Over the course of 11 days, the team studied and determined its structure and named it buckminsterfullerene
Buckminsterfullerene is a type of fullerene with the formula . It has a cage-like fused-ring structure ( truncated icosahedron) made of twenty hexagons and twelve pentagons, and resembles a football. Each of its 60 carbon atoms is bonded to i ...
after noting its similarity to the geodesic dome
A geodesic dome is a hemispherical thin-shell structure (lattice-shell) based on a geodesic polyhedron. The rigid triangular elements of the dome distribute stress throughout the structure, making geodesic domes able to withstand very heavy ...
s for which the architect Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...
was known. This discovery was based solely on the single prominent peak on the mass spectrograph
Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a ''mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is used ...
, implying a chemically inert substance that was geometrically closed with no dangling bond
In chemistry, a dangling bond is an unsatisfied Valence (chemistry), valence on an immobilized atom. An atom with a dangling bond is also referred to as an immobilized free radical or an immobilized radical, a reference to its structural and chemi ...
s. Curl was responsible for determining the optimal conditions of the carbon vapor in the apparatus, and examining the spectrograph. Curl noted that James R. Heath and Sean C. O'Brien deserve equal recognition in the work to Smalley and Kroto. The existence of this type of molecule had earlier been theorized by others, but Curl and his colleagues were at the time unaware of this. Later experiments confirmed their proposed structure, and the team moved on to synthesize endohedral fullerene
Endohedral fullerenes, also called endofullerenes, are fullerenes that have additional atoms, ions, or clusters enclosed within their inner spheres. The first lanthanum C60 complex called La@C60 was synthesized in 1985. The @ (at sign) in t ...
s that had a metal atom inside the hollow carbon shell. The fullerene
A fullerene is an allotropes of carbon, allotrope of carbon whose molecules consist of carbon atoms connected by single and double bonds so as to form a closed or partially closed mesh, with fused rings of five to six atoms. The molecules may ...
s, a class of molecules of which buckminsterfullerene was the first member discovered, are now considered to have potential applications in nanomaterials
Nanomaterials describe, in principle, chemical substances or materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 100 nm (the usual definition of nanoscale).
Nanomaterials research takes a materials science ...
and molecular scale electronics. Robert Curl's 1985 paper entitled "C60: Buckminsterfullerine", published with colleagues H. Kroto, J. R. Heath, S. C. O’Brien, and R. E. Smalley, was honored by a Citation for Chemical Breakthrough Award from the Division of History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society, presented to Rice University in 2015. The discovery of fullerenes was recognized in 2010 by the designation of a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...
at the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
After winning the Nobel Prize in 1996, Curl took a quieter path than Smalley, who became an outspoken advocate of nanotechnology, and Kroto, who used his fame to further his interest in science education, saying, "After winning a Nobel, you can either become a scientific pontificator, or you can have some idea for a new science project and you can use your newfound notoriety to get the resources to do it. Or you can say, 'Well, I enjoy what I was doing, and I want to keep doing that.'" True to that humility, when asked by the President of Rice what he would like, following the Nobel announcement, he asked that a bike rack be installed closer to his office and laboratory.[Robert F. Curl (1933–2022)]
Nature, 17 Aug 2022
Later research
Curl's later research interests involved physical chemistry
Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistical mech ...
, developing DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...
genotyping and sequencing instrumentation, and creating photoacoustic sensors for trace gas
Trace gases are gases that are present in small amounts within an environment such as a planet's atmosphere. Trace gases in Earth's atmosphere are gases other than nitrogen (78.1%), oxygen (20.9%), and argon (0.934%) which, in combination, make u ...
es using quantum cascade laser
Quantum-cascade lasers (QCLs) are semiconductor lasers that emit in the mid- to far-infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum and were first demonstrated by Jérôme Faist, Federico Capasso, Deborah Sivco, Carlo Sirtori, Albert Hutchinson, ...
s. He is known in the residential college life at Rice University for being the first master of Lovett College.
Curl retired in 2008 at the age of 74, becoming a University Professor Emeritus
''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus".
...
, Pitzer-Schlumberger Professor of Natural Sciences Emeritus, and Professor of Chemistry Emeritus at Rice University.
Personal life
Curl married Jonel Whipple in 1955, with whom he had two children. He cycled to his office and lab and every week played bridge with the Rice Bridge Brigade. Curl died in Houston
Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
on July 3, 2022, at the age of 88.[
]
Awards and honors
* Clayton Prize, Institute of Mechanical Engineers, 1957
* Alexander von Humboldt Senior US Scientist Award, University of Bonn, Germany, 1984
* Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, 1997
* Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a nonprofit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest-achieving people in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet one ano ...
, 1997
* Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1998
* International Prize for New Materials, American Physical Society, 1992
* Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry () is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outst ...
, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...
, 1996
* Johannes Marcus Marci Award in Spectroscopy, 1998
* Centenary Medal, Royal Society of Chemistry, 1999
* Honorary Fellow, The Royal Society of New Zealand, 2001
* University of Bochum Research Prize, 2004
* National Historic Chemical Landmark, American Chemical Society, 2010
* Citation for Chemical Breakthrough Award, Division of History of Chemistry, American Chemical Society, 2015
* Fellow of the Optical Society of America
Selected publications
Journal articles:
*
Technical reports:
*Curl, R. F. and G. P. Glass.
Infrared Absorption Spectroscopy and Chemical Kinetics of Free Radicals. Final Performance Report, August 1, 1985 – July 31, 1994
" National Accelerator Laboratory, Rice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres.
Rice University comp ...
, United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear w ...
, (June 1995).
*Curl, R. F. and G. P. Glass.
Infrared Absorption Spectroscopy and Chemical Kinetics of Free Radicals, Final Technical Report
" Rice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres.
Rice University comp ...
, United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear w ...
, (November 2004).
References
External links
*
* Finding aid to th
Guide to the Robert F. Curl Academic papers, 1981–2008, bulk 1985–1993 MS 483
Rice University
Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology
* Career retrospective interview
Discovery, history, and lucky accidents in chemistry
an
What is it like to be a scientist?
AcademicInfluence.com, November/December 2020
{{DEFAULTSORT:Curl, Robert
1933 births
2022 deaths
American Nobel laureates
American physical chemists
Fellows of Optica (society)
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Nobel laureates in Chemistry
People from Alice, Texas
Jefferson High School (San Antonio, Texas) alumni
Rice University alumni
Rice University faculty
Scientists from Texas
American spectroscopists
Carbon scientists
UC Berkeley College of Chemistry alumni
Fellows of the Royal Society of New Zealand