SBIR Phase I: Advanced Fullerene Production

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop and assess electrochemical methods for recovery of the giant and insoluble fullerenes that comprise the bulk of the fullerenes made by the hydrocarbon combustion route. Of the fullerenes produced by the combustion system at TDA, ca. 10 0E 12 % of the raw soot weight is recovered as fullerenes (C60, C70, etc.) by washing the soot with o-xylene and filtering. Yet other analyses demonstrate that most of the fullerenes are not recovered by straightforward washing techniques. In a prior NSF SBIR Phase I, Diener and Alford (Nature 393, 688) demonstrated an electrochemical method for separation of C74, giant fullerenes, and other traditionally insoluble fullerenes from mixed fullerene sublimate. This Phase I project is for the expansion of those ideas to processing of the extracted soot and implementation on a kilogram or greater batch scale. The recovered fullerenes will be useful for applications demanding a more robust, but still fullerenic material or coating. One possibility is carbon coatings for artificial biomaterials, where roughness on a nanometer scale promotes cell growth and increases the already high biocompatibility of carbon. A thin, robust film of higher fullerenes on steel implants potentially offers the high performance of carbon implants, but with a fraction of the cost. It is also possible that the small bandgap fullerenes could have roles that make use of their postulated three- dimensional electrical conductivity, as optical limiters, or as scaffolds for nanotechnological devices