Fullerenes are allotropes of carbon consisting of hollow cages made of pentagonal and hexagonal rings. C60 buckminsterfullerene is the most famous fullerene, consisting of 60 carbon atoms arranged in 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons. Fullerenes were discovered in 1985 and have a variety of applications including use as antioxidants, in drug delivery, hydrogen storage, and more. They can form complexes with metals and be intercalated with other elements.

2. INTRODUCTION
A BRIEF HISTORY OF FULLERENE
STRUCTURE, BONDING AND SYMMETRY
ISOLATED PENTAGONAL RULE
TYPES AND SPECIES
PROPERTIES
FULLERENE LIGANDS
APPLICATIONS
CONCLUSION
SYNTHESIS OF FULLERENE

3. Fullerenes belong to the carbon family and it is the third allotrope of
carbon.
Fullerenes are closed hollow cages consisting of carbon atoms
interconnected in pentagonal and hexagonal rings.
A fullerene is a pure carbon molecule C20 being the smallest one.
The most famous fullerene is C60, known as bucky ball.
Fullerenes have been extensively used for
several biomedical applications including the
design of high-performance MRI contrast agents,
X-Ray imaging contrast agents, photodynamic
therapy and drug and gene delivery,

5.  1985 British chemist Sir Harold W. Kroto and the colleagues Richard E.
Smalley and Robert F. Curl, Jr., discovered fullerene by using pulsed laser
to vaporize graphite rods in an atmosphere of helium gas.
 The structure of fullerene was suggested to be like a soccer ball: a
spherical shape that can be made using 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons
 C60 was named buckminsterfullerene in honour of Buckminster Fuller.
The shortened name 'fullerene‘
is used to refer to the family of
fullerenes.
 In 1996 Curl, Kroto and Smalley
was awarded the Nobel Prize in
chemistry to for their discovery
of fullerenes.

6. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FULLERENES AND THE OTHER TWO ALLOTROPES
CHARACTERS DIAMOND GRAPHITE FULLERENES
1. Carbon
Hybridisation
sp³ sp² sp²
2. Overall
Structure
Infinite 3-D lattice Infinite 2-D planar
layers of hexagons
Finite Cn cages
3. C-C
Bond length
1.54Å 1.39Å Around 1.403Å and
1.434Å
4. Electrical
Property
Insulator Conductor Insulator
5. Density 3.51gm/cm³ 2.22gm/cm³ 1.72gm/cm³

7. C60:
It contains 12 pentagons are surrounded by 20 hexagons.
60 vertices for the carbon atoms and 90 covalent bonds between
them, 60 single bonds and 30 double bonds.
Each carbon is part of one pentagon and two hexagons, each has
two single bonds and one double bond for the traditional carbon
valence of four.
the fullerene hybridization is not fixed but
has variable characteristics depending on the
number of carbon atoms in the molecule.

8.  The pentagonal rings contain only single bonds; double bonds have
a shorter bond length and lead to instability in the pentagonal ring.
 Two types of bond lengths:
 0.145 +/-0.0015 nm for the bonds between five- and six-
membered rings,
 0.140 +/- 0.0015 nm for the bond between the six-membered
rings.

9. A. Top portion ( 1 pentagon, 5 hexagons)
B. Midpotion (10 hexagons, 10 pentagons)
C. Bottom portion( 1 pentagon, 5 hexagons)

10. The famous mathematician, Euler found out a mathematical relation
between edge(E), Vertexes (V) and Faces(F) of any polyhedron as:
F + V = E + 2 1
Suppose,
P=number of pentagons
H =number of hexagons,
for any polyhedron then we have:
F = P + H
V = (5P + 6H)/3
E = (5p + 6H)/2
Now applying these relations in Euler’s relation in eq.1 we have,
( P + H ) + (5p + 6H)/3 = (5p + 6H)/2 + 2
EULER’S THEOREM

11. Combining all those transformations, there are 120 different symmetry
operations and hence forms icosahedral group.
Hence C60 can be called the most symmetric molecule.
:Symmetry of the C60 molecule:
For the C60 molecule there are three kinds of rotation axes.:
•The 5-fold axes through the centres of two facing pentagons. the molecule
is symmetric under rotations of 360/5 = 72 degrees.
• The 3 fold rotation axes through the centre of two facing hexagons i.e.
it takes a rotation of 120 degrees to map the molecule onto itself.
•Finally there are 2-fold axis through the centres of the edges between
two hexagons.
•.

12. The isolated pentagon rule (IPR) states that fullerenes with
isolated Pentagons are kinetically much more stable than
their fused pentagon counterparts.
 C60 is the first stable fullerene because it is the smallest one
possible to obey this rule. Both C60 and its relative C70 obey this
so-called IPR.
This rule can be verified as follows:
 from the thermodynamics standpoint since the fusion of
two pentagons is not favorable energetically due to increased ring
strain, and carbon structures with adjacent pentagons are
unstable.
 A π bond shared by two pentagons has a large negative
bond resonance energy, thus contributing significantly to the
increase in kinetic instability or chemical reactivity of the molecule.

13. First method to produce gram-sized samples.
Consists of evaporating graphite electrodes via restrictive heating
in a helium atmosphere.
 Resulting soot of fullerenes could be extracted with benzene as
solvent.
Modified by Smalley who established an electric arc between two
graphite electrodes.
Invented by Howard in 1991.
Fullerenes are produced in sooting flames with premixed benzene,
oxygen and argon under low pressure.

14. Buckyball clusters:
Nanotubes:
Megatubes:
Polymers
Nano"onions":
Fullerene rings
Linked "ball-and-
chain" dimers

15.  Alkali-doped fullerenes: compounds formed by fullerene with alkali
metals which fill in the space between Buckyballs and donate valence
electron to the neighbouring C60 molecule. e.g., K3C60, Rb3C60.
 Endohedral fullerenes: consists of a metal atom inside the fullerene.
Most of endohedral materials are made out of C82, C84 or even higher
fullerenes. The atoms that form stable endohedral compounds include
lanthanum, yttrium, scandium etc. e.g., La@C60 and Sc2@C84
 Exohedral fullerenes: .These fullerenes have additional atoms, ions or
clusters attached to their outer spheres. They are formed by a chemical
reactions (addition reactions and redox reactions) . E.g.,are C50Cl10 and C60H8
or fullerene ligands.
 Heterofullerenes: one or more carbon atoms of the cage are substituted
by hetero-atoms, e.g., trivalent nitrogen or boron atom .
C59N and its dimer (C59N)2 are the simplest derivatives of nitrogen
fullerene

16. EXOEDRAL FULLERENE
ENDOHEDRAL FULLERENEHETEROFULLERENE

17.  Aromaticity: will display aromatic properties if the 2(N+1)2 rule (N is
integer) is satisfied, C60 is non aromatic (60/2=30,not a perfect
square.)
 Fullerenes are insoluble in Polar solvents
but are soluble in aromatic solvents and
carbon disulfide
 it has a high electron affinity and is reactive chemically,
especially with free radicals.
 Rapidly decomposes in the presence of light and trace
amount of ozone in the air
 In pure oxygen, C60 begins to sublime at 350°C and ignites at
365°C; in air, it oxidizes rapidly to CO and CO2.
PROPERTIES OF FULLERENES; CHEMICAL REACTIVITY

18. PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
Insoluble in water
Cannot conduct electricity
Soft and slippery
Brittle
Low melting point

19. FULLERENE COMPOUNDS:
The first derivative structure of C60 was the remarkable osmium
compound:
OsO4
4-t-Bupy
Some other compounds are:
The high reactivity is attributed to the non planarity of the c=c
groups, which causes high strain energy and because each c=cbond
is attached to four electron withdrawing groups.

20. C60 can behave as an alkene towards transition metals, a side on,η₂-
connection to either Pt or Ir is made by π electrons of a c=c group.
C60 + (η₂ - C2H4)Pt(PPh3)₂ C2H4 + (η₂- C60)Pt(PPh3)₂
C60 + Ir(CO)Cl(PPh3)₂ (η₂-C60)Ir(CO)Cl(PPh3)₂
These compounds can be formulated as :
MC60

21. Fullerene Intercalation Compounds:
Fullerene aggregates are bonded by van der Waals forces so foreign
elements are readily intercalated in the lattice in a manner similar to the
intercalation of graphite.
Intercalation elements :alkali ions (cesium,
rubidium, potassium, sodium, and lithium)
which, being smaller than the fullerene,
fit into the lattice without disrupting the
geodesic network and the contact between
the molecules of the aggregate.
Some intercalation compounds are superconductors, such as C60K3 with an
onset of superconductivity at 17 K and zero resistance at 5 K.

22. .
 The first use of fullerenes as ligands was when C60
was used as a ligand on platinum in the system
[(Ph3)P]2Pt(η2-C60)]
. Fullerene ligands behave similarly
to electron deficient alkenes and coordinate in
a dihapto fashion. This binding occurs on the
junction points of two 6-membered rings.
Higher hapticity is observed complexes of C60Ph5
−. In this system, bonding to
one of the 5-membered acts like a cyclopentadienyl ligand with
multiple substituents

23. In other cases, a fullerene can bind
to multiple metal centres.
e.g [(Ph3P)2Pt]6C60
Uses:
Although no application has been commercialized, fullerene complexes are of
interest as potential catalysts, non-linear optical (NLO) materials, and as
supramolecular building blocks.
In this example, the complex has
binding very similar to ferrocene.

24.  As antioxidant
Antimicrobial- agents
Drug delivery
Photosensitizers in photodynamic therapy

25.  As personal care products
As dry lubricants in coating application.
In solar cells.
In hydrogen gas storage.
In strengtening/hardening of metals.
As sensors.
As molecular wires.
As organic photovoltaics (OPV)
As catalyst.
In water purification and biohazard protection.
In making bullet proof vents with inorganic buckyballs

26. Thus this study gives the basic knowledge of structure of
fullerenes and their applications. Fullerenes, have become
important molecules in science and technology. Due to their
very practical properties, fullerenes are a key topic on
nanotechnology and industrial research nowadays. Fullerenes
are used in today’s industry already, mostly in and in drug
industry and in cosmetics, where they play an important role
as antioxidants

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•http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/local/projects/Lertpibulpanya/k.html
•https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/
fullerenes.html#discovery-of-fullerenes
•https://www.britannica.com/science/fullerene
•https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullerene
•B.C. Yadav and Ritesh Kumar, "Structure, properties and applications of fullerene",
International Journal of Nanotechnology and Applications
ISSN 0973-631X Volume 2, Number 1 (2008), pp. 15–24
•Maurizio Prato," [60]Fullerene chemistry for materials science applications",