Cluster Origin of Solvent Features INTRODUCTION Interest in nanoparticles (NPs) arises from the shape-dependent physical properties of materi- als at nanoscale (Faraday, 1857; Murphy et al., 2010). The occurrence of single-wall carbon nanocones (SWNCs) was used to investigate the nucleation and growth of curved carbon struc- tures, suggesting that the presence of pentagons performs a fundamental role in processes. When a pentagonal defect is introduced into a graphitic sheet (graphene, GR), via the extraction of a 60º sector from this sheet, one has the formation of a cone sheet. The presence of pentagons in an SWNC apex is analogue of their occurrence in single-wall carbon nanotube (SWNT) tip topology. The SWNT terminations attracted considerable interest once peculiar electronic states, related to the topological defects in the graphite lattice, were theoretically predicted (Tamura & Tsukada, The observation was explained by a model of the cone wall composed of wrapped GR sheets, where geometrical requirement for seamless connection naturally accounted for the semi-discrete charac- ter and absolute values of cone angle. The total disclinations of all conic graphenic microstruc- tures are multiples of 60º, corresponding to the presence of a given number (P 0) of pentagons in SWNC apices. Considering GR sheet sym- metry and Euler theorem, only five types of SWNCs (corresponding to the values of angle) can be obtained from a continue GR sheet, match- ing to P values in 1­5. Cone angle () is given by sin(/2) = 1 ­ P/6 leading to reported values for SWNC angles, where flat discs and caped SWNTs correspond to P = 0 and P = 6. The SWNC with P = 5 pentagons ( = 19º) is called single-wall carbon nanohorn (SWNH). Several configurations exist for a given SWNC angle, depending on the form in which the pentagons are arranged in the