This project is developing methods for the recovery of the giant, insoluble fullerenes, and exploring the properties of this new class of fullerenes. Forty tons per year of fullerenes are now produced by the combustion process, which was developed and commercialized by TDA with NSF and DOE SBIR support. While ca. 20% of the raw soot from the weight is routinely recovered as soluble fullerenes (C{sub}60, C{sub}70, etc.) by washing the soot with o-xylene and filtering, it was shown in Phase I of this project that another ca. 15 - 20% of the soot can be recovered as giant (or otherwise insoluble) fullerenes using electron transfer methods. We are developing the Phase I process and researching the properties of the newly recovered fullerenes to elucidate their potential for applications both like and dislike those for soluble fullerenes.
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