Purification of fullerenes
AssigneeUniversity of South Carolina
InventorsJames M. Tour, Walter A. Scrivens, Peter V. Bedworth
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Abstract
A low-cost and facile method of purifying fullerenes to obtain a preparation enriched in a fullerene of selected molecular weight using activated carbon involves adding a fullerene mixture to the top end of a column comprising activated carbon, passing a solvent in which the selected molecular weight fullerene is soluble through the column, and recovering a fraction enriched in the selected molecular weight fullerene from the bottom end of the column. In addition to activated carbon, the column may further comprise silica gel, diatomaceous earth, or other materials which aid in column packing and eluent flow.
Claims14
A method of purifying a mixture of fullerenes to obtain a preparation enriched in a fullerene of a selected molecular weight comprising;
- adding a fullerene mixture to the top end of a column comprising activated carbon,
- passing a solvent selected from the group consisting of aromatics and halogenated hydrocarbons in which said selected molecular weight fullerene is soluble through said column, and
- recovering a fraction enriched in the fullerene of the selected molecular weight from the bottom end of the column.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.