What are Endohedral compounds?

Endohedral fullerenes, also called endofullerenes, are fullerenes that have additional atoms, ions, or clusters enclosed within their inner spheres. The first lanthanum C60 complex called La@C60 was synthesized in 1985. The @ (at sign) in the name reflects the notion of a small molecule trapped inside a shell.

What are endohedral fullerenes used for?

Endohedral fullerenes are novel nanomaterials with applications in organic photovoltaic cells, cancer treatment, nanoelectronics, and other cutting edge technologies.

What is an example of a fullerene?

Fullerenes are molecules of carbon atoms with hollow shapes. Their structures are based on hexagonal rings of carbon atoms joined by covalent bonds. Some fullerenes include rings with five or seven carbon atoms. Two examples of fullerenes are buckminsterfullerene and nanotubes .

What is doped fullerene?

The heteroatom-doped fullerene is systematically studied as an electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) on the cathode of fuel cells under the alkaline and acid conditions. Nitrogen-doped C60, i. e. C59N, can facilitate the ORR process and it is a promising candidate for efficient ORR electrocatalysts.

How are fullerenes made?

Fullerenes are made by vaporizing graphite in the arc or with an electric current in a low-pressure helium or argon atmosphere.

What is isolated pentagon rule?

Abstract. Fullerenes tend to follow the isolated pentagon rule, which requires that each of the 12 pentagons is surrounded only by hexagons. Over the past decade many violations to this rule were reported for endohedral fullerenes.

How much are buckyballs worth?

The Buckminsterfullerene material (or “bucky-ball” because of its shape) is made up of just 60 carbon atoms. Designer Carbon Materials recently sold its first 200mcg of the material for £22,000, which equals out to just about $33,000. However, it may only hold the title of “most expensive material” for so long.

What are 3 uses of fullerenes?

Uses of Fullerene

  • Fullerenes are used in the medical field as light-activated antimicrobial agents.
  • It is also used in several biomedical applications including the design of high-performance MRI contrast agents, X-ray imaging contrast agents, photodynamic therapy and drug and gene delivery.

What is alkali-doped C60?

Superconductivity in alkali-doped C60 (A3C60, A = an alkali atom) is well described by an s-wave state produced by phonon mediated pairing. Moderate coupling of electrons to high-frequency shape-changing intra-molecular vibrational modes produces transition temperatures (Tc) up to 33 K in single-phase material.

What do you mean by alkali-doped fullerenes?

Alkali-doped C60 compounds, AnC60 (A= K, Rb), are characterized by an unusual parameter range, which leads to interesting properties and a challenging test of theoretical methods. Furthermore, many A3C60 compounds are superconductors, with a critical temperature T c which is only exceeded by cuprates.

How many Pentagon are in a fullerene hexagon?

Fullerenes (MPI-FKF) C60 is a molecule that consists of 60 carbon atoms, arranged as 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons.