Fullerenes potential applications

Imahori H and Sakata Y 1997 Donor-linked fullerenes photoinduced electron transfer and its potential application Adv. Mater. 9 537-46... 

There are many applications for diamonds and related materials, e.g., diamondlike carbon films, and there are potential applications for Fullerenes and carbon nanotubes that have not yet been realised. However, the great majority of engineering carbons, including most of those described in this book, have graphitic microstructures or disordered graphitic microstructures. Also, most engineering carbon materials are derived firom organic precursors by heat-treatment in inert atmospheres (carbonisation). A selection of technically-... 

The structure-property relations of fullerenes, fullerene-derived solids, and carbon nanotubes are reviewed in the context of advanced technologies for carbon-hased materials. The synthesis, structure and electronic properties of fullerene solids are then considered, and modifications to their structure and properties through doping with various charge transfer agents are reviewed. Brief comments are included on potential applications of this unique family of new materials. 

In this contribution we want to provide a short overview addressing the current state-of-the-art of water-soluble fullerene derivatives and their potential applications as antioxidant or neuroprotective drug candidates. After summarizing the most prominent concepts of designing water-soluble fullerenes in the first chapter we will present some more recent achievements with respect to biological activities of antioxidant fullerenes, with emphasis on our own results. 

Fig. 10.20 A flow diagram for the potential applications of using fullerenes in oncology...

Despite the numerous modelling works on the subject (e.g. Sivaraman et al., 2001 Huang, 2005) and the great interest on the solubility of fullerenes in hydrophilic solvents, in water and in biologically active solvents for the potential application of fullerenes as drugs, none was able to predict that C60 and C70 fullerenes... 

Fullerenes have potential applications in the preparation of carbon support catalyts and diamond films. They have high electrical conductivity and chemical reactivity. 

The covalent chemistry of fullerenes has developed very rapidly in the past decade in an effort to modify fuUerene properties for a number of applications such as photovoltaic cells, infrared detectors, optical limiting devices, chemical gas sensors, three-dimensional electroactive polymers, and molecular wires [8, 25, 26, 80-82]. Systematic studies of the redox properties of Cgo derivatives have played a crucial role in the characterization of their unique electronic properties, which lie at the center of these potential applications. Furthermore, electrochemical techniques have been used to synthesize and separate new fullerene derivatives and their isomers as well as to prepare fullerene containing thin films and polymers. In this section, to facilitate discussion of their redox properties, Cgo derivatives have been classified in three groups on the basis of the type of attachment of the addend to the fullerene. In group one, the addends are attached via single bonds to the Cgo surface as shown in Fig. 6(a) and are referred to as singly bonded functionalized derivatives. The group includes... 

Because of the great expectations that these carbon nanostructures—fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, graphene, and related species20—have for potential applications in... 

Once the synthetic methodologies were developed, the research efforts were focused on the preparation of photoactive systems where fullerenes had already shown potential applicability, such as organic photovoltaic materials. In these molecular-scale engineered systems, a fullerene electron acceptor contained in one submolecular fragment is coupled with an electron donor contained in the opposite component. Zinc porphyrins were thus coupled to in many different architectures such as, for instance, in that shown in Scheme 9.11, where the ZnP was appended to... 

The Fullerenes form particularly strong complexes with porphyrins as exemplified by the X-ray crystal structure of the covalent Fullerene-porphyrin conjugate 15.8 (Figure 15.29).48 This property allows fullerenes and porphyrins to form extended supramolecular arrays (even when not covalently linked) and has been used to engineer host-guest complexes in which a Fullerene is sandwiched in between a pair of porphyrins, and ordered arrays involving interleaved porphyrins and Fullerenes. Applications include the use of porphyrin solid phases in the chromatographic separation of Fullerenes and potential applications in porous frameworks and photovoltaic devices.49... 

Basic investigations such as selective syntheses, structural and electronic properties of fluorinated fullerenes have recently been much developed as was discussed earlier in this chapter. In general, however, research on applications is still at a very early stage. Potential applications of these materials would be related to their characteristic physical and chemical properties, some of which are summarized in Table 3. 

Although the honeymoon of fullerene chemistry appears to be over there is much to do, for example, in order to establish fullerene chemistry as an analogue of, say, benzene chemistry. It is nevertheless clear that many overly excited predictions as to potential applications of fullerenes have not turned out to be as realistic. It may well appear that nanotubes, in particular single-walled nanotubes, become more important, for example, as wires for charge transport in nanoelectronics [269],... 

Within the large number of multiredox arrays containing metalloporphyrins/covalently bound (conjugate) fullerene-metalloporphyrin dyads have gained enormous interest in the last ten years, mainly due to their potential application as artificial antennae Due to the multiredox behaviour of the fullerenes (up to six reversible one-electron reductions and at least one reversible one-electron oxidation), the porphyrin ligands and the incorporated metals, the assignment of electron-transfer steps in such systems is difficult. Recently, spectroelectrochemical characterisation has been carried out on a number of fullerene-[(TPP)Co] dyads shown in Scheme 4.3, which exhibit rather complex redox behaviour (Figure 4.19). 

Beside the practical importance of aromatic compounds, there has always been an interest in more or less theoretical problems like the scope, limitation and effects of electron delocalization in aromatic compounds (the aromaticity problem ). These investigations were strongly encouraged by the discovery of fullerene formation in a carbon plasma [18], in fuel-rich flames [24] or by the pyrolytic transformation of PAHs [25] together with a variety of the as yet potential application of these aromatic carbon cage compounds [18]. New selective C-C bond formation reactions as well as mechanisms of the rearrangement in carbon skeletons have been studied. 

The range of potential applications of fuUerenes and fullerene derivatives in materisds science is becoming broader in virtue of the increased number of derivatives that are continuously produced. New opportunities arise from the combination of the fullerene properties with those of other classes of materials, such as polymers, electro- or photoactive imits, liquid crystals, etc. In this article we wiU review the most recent achievements in this field. 

The present voliune combines reports and the current status of the principles of fullerene reactivity, of cluster modified fullerenes, of higher fullerenes and nanotubes and reviews potential applications of fullerene materials. This volume is also meant to inspire interested fullerene researchers to find elegant... 

The discovery of fullerenes in 1985 (1) sparked the interest of researchers in novel crystalline forms of carbon. As a result, while hollow carbon filaments and nano-tube-like stractures had been reported many years before (2), the publications of lijima and Ichihasi (3, 4) and Bethune et al. (5), shortly after the development of fullerenes, generated an unprecedented wave of excitement and intense research in academic as well as industrial labs around the world. Nobel laureate Richard Smalley, co-discoverer of fullerenes, was a strong advocate of nanotube research and his endorsement strengthened the field. The results of such an extensive effort quickly demonstrated the unique properties of these carbon structures, as well as a cornucopia of potential applications in many fields of technology (6). 

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