Recovery of C.sub.60 and C.sub.70 buckminsterfullerenes from carbon soot by supercritical fluid extraction and their separation by adsorption chromatography

摘要

A process has been developed to effectively separate and recover essentially pure amounts of both C.sub.60 and C.sub.70 from carbon soot and higher molecular weight fullerenes. This process first extracts the fullerenes from carbon soot and then sequentially separates the C.sub.60 and C.sub.70 molecules using high performance or low pressure adsorption chromatography packed column containing a gel polymer having aromaticity and a pore size ranging from 10 to 500 . PPIn this process, a first stage of fractionation of the fullerenes is preferably accomplished by selective supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) of C.sub. 60. Unrecovered C.sub.60 and C.sub.70 molecules are then extracted by supercritical fluid extraction at a higher pressure and/or higher temperature.