COMBUSTION SYNTHESIS OF FULLERENES

FULLERENES, A NEW FORM OF CARBON WITH STRUCTURES SIMILAR TO THOSE OF A SOCCER BALL, WERE FIRST PRODUCED IN THE FALL OF 1990. BECAUSE OF THEIR UNIQUE PROPERTIES, MANY PROMISING APPLICATIONS HAVE BEEN SUGGESTED, INCLUDING THREE DIMENSIONAL ORGANIC CONDUCTOR, ORGANIC SUPERCONDUCTOR, SEMICONDUCTOR, HIGH CURRENT DENSITY BATTERY MATERIAL, CATALYST SUPPORT, POLYMER BUILDING BLOCK, AND SORBENT. HOWEVER, NO MATTER HOW INTERESTING THEIR PROPERTIES, ALL THESE APPLICATIONS WILL REQUIRE THAT LARGE QUANTITIES OF FULLERENES BE AVAILABLE AT A RELATIVELY LOW PRICE. ALTHOUGH THE CARBON-ARC PRODUCTION METHOD IS SIMPLE TO BUILDAND RUN AT THE LABORATORY SCALE, IT IS INHERENTLY A SMALL-SCALE BATCH PROCESS, DIFFICULT TO SCALE-UP, ENERGY INTENSIVE, AND EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE. THEREFORE, TDA RESEARCH(TDA) PROPOSES TO DEVELOP A COMBUSTION SYNTHESIS PROCESS TO PRODUCE LARGE QUANTITIES OF LOW-COST FULLERENES. COMBUSTIONPROCESSES ARE CONTINUOUS, EASY TO SCALE UP, ALLOW FINE CONTROL OF THE TIME-TEMPERATURE HISTORY, HAVE LOW CAPITAL COSTS, USE INEXPENSIVE HYDROCARBON FUELS, AND SHOULD HAVE SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED CAPITAL COSTS. AS A RESULT, A COMBUSTION PROCESSES SHOULD BE CONSIDERABLY LESS EXPENSIVE THAN AN ARC PROCESS. TDA WAS THE FIRST GROUP TO ISOLATE FULLERENES FROM COMBUSTION SOOT, AND HAS DEVELOPED THERMODYNAMIC MODELS TO PREDICT THE DEPENDENCE OF YIELD ON OPERATING CONDITIONS. IN THE PHASE I PROJECT, TDA WILL INVESTIGATE THE EFFECTS OF TEMPERATURE, PRESSURE, EQUIVALENCE RATIO, AND FUEL COMPOSITION IN ORDER TO OPTIMIZE THE YIELD OF FULLERENES, AND USE THIS DATA TO ANALYZE THE PRODUCTION COSTS FOR THE COMBUSTION ROUTE.