Buckminsterfullerene Lab Report

Fullerenes can be described as a molecule of carbon that can take the form of a hollow sphere, ellipsoid or tube. In 1985, Buckminsterfullerene became the first fullerene molecule to be discovered. This discovery was made by Richard Smalley, Robert Curl, James Heath, Sean O’Brien and Harold Kroto at Rice University, Texas and led to Kroto, Curl and Smalley winning the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Buckminsterfullerene molecules, otherwise known as Buckyballs were discovered purely by chance, during experiments which produced carbon plasmas by vaporising a graphite rod in a helium atmosphere using a laser. The aim of this experiment was to characterise unidentified interstellar matter and spectrometry evidence proved that carbon molecules of C60 were forming. These molecules were found to have a spheroidal geometry similar to that of Buckminster Fuller’s

Given the name endohedral fullerenes or endofullerenes, these trapped molecules have increased physical and electronic properties and open up a new world of applications in medicine, cosmetics and perhaps even superconductivity. There are two types of endohedral fullerenes in existence, which are endohedral metallofullerenes and non-metal doped fullerenes. Endohedral metallofullerenes are fullerenes that have been doped with electropositive metals through laser evaporation. These metallic atoms will transfer electrons to the surrounding cage and will also move off centre in the cage. There are usually 2 or 3 charge units in the fullerene cage, but this is difficult to determine accurately. Due to its design, metallofullerenes are more stable than normal empty fullerenes up to very high temperatures and have uses in medicine. A metallofullerene with gadolinium is used as a contrast agent in magnetic resonance imaging scans and other metallofullerenes may be able to transport radioactive ions to cancerous tissue, providing a