Born inAlice, Texas, United States, Curl was the son of aMethodistminister.[2][3] 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.[4][5] Curl attributes his interest in chemistry to achemistry set he received as a nine-year-old, recalling that he ruined the finish on his mother's porcelain stove whennitric acid boiled over onto it.[6] He is a graduate ofThomas Jefferson High School inSan Antonio, Texas.[7] 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.[5]
Curl received aBachelor of Arts in chemistry fromRice Institute (now Rice University) in 1954.[2] 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.[5] He earned hisdoctorate in chemistry from theUniversity of California, Berkeley, in 1957.[2] At Berkeley, he worked in the laboratory ofKenneth Pitzer, then dean of the college of chemistry, with whom he would become a lifelong collaborator. Curl's graduate research involved performinginfrared spectroscopy to determine thebond angle ofdisiloxane.[4][5]
Curl was a postdoctoral fellow atHarvard University withE. B. Wilson, where he usedmicrowave spectroscopy to study thebond rotation barriers of molecules.[5] After that, he joined the faculty of Rice University in 1958.[4] He inherited the equipment and graduate students ofGeorge Bird, a professor who was leaving for a job atPolaroid.[6] Curl's early research involved the microwave spectroscopy ofchlorine dioxide.[5] His research program included both experiment and theory, mainly focused on detection and analysis offree radicals using microwave spectroscopy and tunable lasers. He used these observations to develop the theory of theirfine structure andhyperfine structure, as well as information about their structure and the kinetics of their reactions.[8]
Curl's research at Rice involved the fields of infrared and microwave spectroscopy.[4] Curl's research inspired Richard Smalley to come to Rice in 1976 with the intention of collaborating with Curl.[9] 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 ofcarbon chains inred giant stars. Smalley and Curl had previously used this apparatus to studysemiconductors such assilicon andgermanium.[4] 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.[9]
They indeed found the long carbon chains they were looking for, but also found an unexpected product that had 60 carbon atoms.[9] Over the course of 11 days, the team studied and determined its structure and named itbuckminsterfullerene after noting its similarity to thegeodesic domes for which the architectBuckminster Fuller was known.[10] This discovery was based solely on the single prominent peak on themass spectrograph, implying a chemically inert substance that was geometrically closed with nodangling bonds.[11] Curl was responsible for determining the optimal conditions of the carbon vapor in the apparatus, and examining the spectrograph.[4] Curl noted thatJames R. Heath andSean C. O'Brien deserve equal recognition in the work to Smalley and Kroto.[5] 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 synthesizeendohedral fullerenes that had a metal atom inside the hollow carbon shell.[11][12][13][14][15] Thefullerenes, a class of molecules of which buckminsterfullerene was the first member discovered, are now considered to have potential applications innanomaterials andmolecular scale electronics.[9] 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.[16][17] The discovery of fullerenes was recognized in 2010 by the designation of aNational Historic Chemical Landmark by theAmerican Chemical Society at the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology at Rice University in Houston, Texas.[18]
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.'"[6] True to that humility, when asked by the President of Rice what he would like, following the Nobel announcement, he asked that abike rack be installed closer to his office and laboratory.[19]
Curl retired in 2008 at the age of 74,[6] becoming a UniversityProfessor Emeritus, Pitzer-Schlumberger Professor of Natural Sciences Emeritus, and Professor of Chemistry Emeritus at Rice University.[1][8]
Curl married Jonel Whipple in 1955, with whom he had two children. Hecycled to his office and lab and every week played bridge with the Rice Bridge Brigade. Curl died inHouston on July 3, 2022, at the age of 88.[22][23][24][25][19]
^Heath, J. R.; O'Brien, S. C.; Zhang, Q.; Liu, Y.; Curl, R. F.; Tittel, F. K.; Smalley, R. E. (December 1985). "Lanthanum complexes of spheroidal carbon shells".Journal of the American Chemical Society.107 (25):7779–7780.Bibcode:1985JAChS.107.7779H.doi:10.1021/ja00311a102.
^Zhang, Q. L.; O'Brien, S. C.; Heath, J. R.; Liu, Y.; Curl, R. F.; Kroto, H. W.; Smalley, R. E. (February 1986). "Reactivity of large carbon clusters: spheroidal carbon shells and their possible relevance to the formation and morphology of soot".The Journal of Physical Chemistry.90 (4):525–528.doi:10.1021/j100276a001.
^ab"2015 Awardees".American Chemical Society, Division of the History of Chemistry. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign School of Chemical Sciences. 2015. RetrievedJuly 1, 2016.
^ab"Citation for Chemical Breakthrough Award"(PDF).American Chemical Society, Division of the History of Chemistry. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign School of Chemical Sciences. 2015. RetrievedJuly 1, 2016.
