Syntheses towards new all-carbon network structures - new results of fullerene chemistry

摘要

With the discovery of the fullerenes, chemists have become increasingly interested in carbon allotropy. Not only have they learned to functionalize fullerenes in a rational way, leading to useful components for materials sciences and biological applications, but they also started exploring synthetic routes towards other molecular forms of pure carbon as well as to two- and three-dimensional all-carbon networks with predicted fascinating physical properties. Closest to technological applications today are the carbon nanotubes which are available by arc heating of graphite, a process similar to the bulk preparation method for the soluble fullerenes C_(60) and C_(70).