Chia-Chin Tsoo and Bih-Yaw Jin
Artists
Bih-Yaw Jin
Professor
Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan University
Taipei, Taiwan
Statement
Mathematical beading is utilized to the construction of bead sculptures of several water cluster architectures based on clathrate hydrates and related Weaire-Phelan’s foam. These nanostructures can be viewed as three-level hierarchical frameworks which are composed of primary tetrahedral hydrogen-bonded water pentamers, secondary cage-like units and final three-dimensional architectures. Here, we show two bead sculptures that represent the most important Type-I and Type-II clathrate hydrates.
Artworks
Bead model for the Type I clathrate hydrates (Weaire-Phelan structures)
12 x 12 x 16 cm
8mm plastic beads
2014
This sculpture represents a physical model Type-I clathrate hydrates, which is also known as the Weaire-Phelan foam. Type I clathrate hydrate consists of pentagonal dodecahedron and tetrakaidecahedra, which are further stacked in a cubic arrangement. There are 46 water molecules in a unit cell of Type-I hydrates. Typical guest molecules in this type of hydrates are carbon dioxide and methane.
Bead model for the Type II clathrate hydrates
13 x 13 x 13 cm
8mm plastic beads
2014
This sculpture represents a physical model Type-II clathrate hydrates, which contains also two types of polyhedra: the 16-faced hexakaidecahedra together with smaller pentagonal dodecahedra. This sculpture is constructed by focusing on larger hexakaidecahedra which share their hexagonal faces and form a diamond-like three-dimensional network. Each of these hexakaidecahedra is surrounded by twelve pentagonal dodecahedra. There are 136 water molecules in a unit cell. Type-II hydrates are usually formed by guest molecules like oxygen and nitrogen.