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Fullerenes

C60's smallest cousin

Nature volume 393, pages 730–731 (1998)Cite this article

In 1990, Kratschmer, Lamb, Fostiropoulos and Huffman (KLFH)1 caught the chemical world off-guard when they announced their synthesis of C60-buckminsterfullerene. It was surprising not only that bulk quantities of fullerenes could be prepared, but also that the process was so simple. In chemical terms, the KLFH synthesis is essentially a single-step procedure — strike an arc across two graphite electrodes and large quantities of fullerenes are produced.

In reality, however, the formation of fullerenes proceeds through an extremely fast and complex sequence of reactions, starting with carbon atoms and dimers2. In spite of the tremendous advances in fullerene chemistry since the initial discovery of C60 in 1985 (ref. 3), very little detailed insight into the formation mechanisms of the fullerenes and related structures has been achieved. On page 771 of this issue4, Piskoti, Yarger and Zettl present evidence for the formation of bulk quantities of C36-fullerene. This represents the first direct evidence that a fullerene smaller than C60 is produced in the KLFH synthesis. The very fact that C36 is formed implies much about the chemistry that leads to C60 and the higher fullerenes.

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Figure 1: Little and large relations — C60 surrounded by seven of its smaller C36-fullerene cousins, which Piskoti et al.4 have prepared in bulk form.

References

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  1. The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California at Los Angeles, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, 90095-1569, California, USA

    James R. Heath

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Heath, J. C60's smallest cousin. Nature 393, 730–731 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/31579

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