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Why does Diamond doesn't conduct electricity but Graphite does?

Conduction of electricity mainly depends upon presence of free electrons.

  • In graphite, each carbon atom is directly linked to only three carbon atoms through covalent bonds. Therefore, out of the four valence electrons in a carbon atom only three are used for bonding and the fourth is relatively free and can move from one carbon atom to other. This results in the conductivity of graphite.
  • In diamond, every carbon atom shares four of its available electrons with other carbon atoms, forming a tetrahedral network. Therefore diamond does not have any free electron to conduct electricity. So diamond is insulator.

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Both Diamond and graphite are bonded covalently and most covalent substances will not conduct electricity. Diamond contains entirely carbon-carbon single bonds and so the electrons basically stay between two atoms.



Graphite is sometime represented as having alternate signal and double bond but this is not quite accurate. There are no definite single and double bonds but rather bonds that are in between. This property is called resonance. Because of this resonance the electrons are delocalized; they are not tied down to any pair of atoms and are free to move throught the structure.

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