Separation and purification of C_(60)/C_(70) by depressurizing liquid chromatography

摘要

Until now, column chromatography is still the chief method for separation and purification of C_(60)/C_(70). The stationary phases used in the method can either be neutral alumina, graphite, activated charcoal, or the mixture of activated charcoal andsilica gel, etc. The method that uses neutral alumina as the stationary phase and hexane as the mobile phase is the most popular and earliest used, but it has many limitations. With the use of the mixture of activated charcoal and silica gel as the stationary phase, most of these limitations have been overpassed. Scrivens developed a method, resulting in a faster elution rate, a higher separation efficiency, a larger throughput and perfect recovery of fullerenes from the column (>95%). However, the method also has such disadvantages as the complexation of apparatus and unsafely. Outlined here is a depressurizing column chromatography method, by which dry packing the mixture of activated charcoal and silica gel as the stationary phase can lead to simplicity of the apparatus, safety, high separation efficiency, increment of throughput and reduced consumption of solvent.