Hollow Spherical Fullerene Obtained by Kinetically Controlled Liquid-Liquid Interfacial Precipitation

Guoping Chen; Flavien Sciortino; Kotaro Takeyasu; Junji Nakamura; Jonathan P Hill; Lok Kumar Shrestha; Katsuhiko Ariga

doi:10.1002/asia.202200756

Hollow Spherical Fullerene Obtained by Kinetically Controlled Liquid-Liquid Interfacial Precipitation

Chem Asian J. 2022 Oct 17;17(20):e202200756. doi: 10.1002/asia.202200756. Epub 2022 Sep 6.

Authors

Guoping Chen^{1

2}, Flavien Sciortino^{2

3}, Kotaro Takeyasu⁴, Junji Nakamura^{4

5}, Jonathan P Hill², Lok Kumar Shrestha^{2

6}, Katsuhiko Ariga^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba, 277-0827, Japan.
² International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science, Namiki 1-1, Tsukuba, 305-0044, Japan.
³ Department of Chemistry, University of Basel, Mattenstrasse 24a, Basel, 4002, Switzerland.
⁴ Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences, Tsukuba Research Centre for Energy and Materials Science, University of Tsukuba, Tennodai 1-1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8573, Japan.
⁵ Mitsui Chemicals, Inc., Carbon Neutral Energy Research Center (MCI-CNRC), International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (I2CNER), Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka-shi, Fukuoka, 819-0395, Japan.
⁶ Department of Materials Science, Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1, Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8573, Japan.

PMID: 35999179
DOI: 10.1002/asia.202200756

Abstract

Nanomaterials with hollow structures are expected to exhibit new functionalities for materials engineering. Here we report the fabrication of fullerene (C₆₀ ) spheres having different hollow structures by using a kinetically controlled liquid-liquid interfacial precipitation (KC-LLIP) method. For this purpose, 1,2-ethylenediamine (EDA) was used as a covalent cross-linker of C₆₀ molecules to form C₆₀ -EDA shells, while in-situ generated EDA-sulfur (EDA-S) droplets were applied as 'yolks' being eliminated by washing following formation of the yolk-shell structure, leading to hollow structures. Porous spheres, string hollow spheres, hollow spheres, and open hollow spheres have been synthesized by controlling the kinetics of nucleation of C₆₀ -EDA and the template EDA-S growth. Isopropanol was used as an additive to control the discrepancy in growth rates of C₆₀ -EDA and EDA-S. This simple KC-LLIP preparation method is expected to facilitate the large-scale fabrication and application of structured C₆₀ spheres in materials science and technology.

Keywords: fullerenes; kinetic control; liquid-liquid interfacial precipitation; nanostructures.

Abstract

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